Bullying is not a topic that attracts the "LOL - laugh out loud" Generation Y talk or emoticon - but Neven is standing up and owning up to bullying a friend 25 years ago in his Melbourne International Comedy Festival show, Bully, at the Red Violin in Melbourne.

"It's about finding something funny in the stories that have happened," Neven explained.

Bullying, homophobic bullying or cyberbullying can have devastating long-term consequences and lead to depression and suicide. Australian research shows one in four students are bullied every two weeks, and one in 5 students aged 8 to 17 reported being cyberbullied.

When the comic was 14, peer-group pressure led him to exclude an overweight friend at a time when raging teenage hormones made their group interested in girls. "If we kept hanging out with the fat kid, girls would never talk to us," Neven recalled.

With fired-up emotions of rejection and teenage angst, the stand-off nearly turned violent. Neven knew his behaviour was wrong and it has haunted him ever since. He reconnected with his former friend through a 20-year school reunion and, in 2014, he apologised and they rekindled the friendship.

Owning up has been cathartic but Neven still feels remorse. He is helping the audience to bare their souls by writing the names of their bullies on a martial-arts dummy that they confront.

Neven, who has been a comedian for 11 years, has performed Bully for the Melbourne Fringe Festival and the Adelaide Fringe Festival and believes his 50-minute soliloquy gives an insight into a bully's mind. "A lot of bullying talk is about the victim and you never really hear from the people who've done it. There's nothing good about being a bully but if you can own up to it and try to move forward and apologise it's the least you can do."

The National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence was on March 20 and statistics from its Bullying No Way website suggest bullying peaks in the middle primary school years and first year of high school.

All proceeds from Neven's opening night on March 25 went to the Alannah and Madeline Foundation, the children's charity that established the National Centre Against Bullying in 2002 that is chaired by Alastair Nicholson, the former chief justice of the Family Court. Collection tins will be rattled for the duration of the show.

Neven has seen a cultural shift in tackling bullying: when he was bullied, he was told to "toughen up". Since 2000, the foundation has run the "Better Buddies" program to pair new primary students with an older buddy. It runs in 1700 schools across Australia and Neven's six-year-old daughter is benefiting from it.

The foundation's chief executive, Dr Judith Slocombe, said: "Mick's story highlights the long-term impact of bullying, and the importance of early intervention to prevent bullying happening in the first place."

Australian Catholic University professor of psychology Sheryl Hemphill embarked on a longitudinal study of adolescent bullying perpetration and victimisation in Victoria in 2003 and included cyberbullying in 2006.

"It is important to consider the bully and the victim," Professor Hemphill said. "There is a group of young people who are both."

The study found bullying is detrimental to the bully and the victim, and could lead to binge drinking, depression, violence, theft and marijuana use.

Bully runs at the Red Violin in McKillop Street, Melbourne, until April 18.

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2015/season/shows/bully-mick-neven