When Frankie McNair started taking comedy seriously, they tell us, it got boring – so boring they almost quit. Only when the Canberra native rediscovered silly – specifically, with a Harry Hill-alike bit about a “long fork lady” – did they plug back into their love for the artform, and win the best newcomer gong at the Melbourne comedy festival to boot. That show, Relax Your Knees, now arrives in London, advertising the Aussie as a captivating new talent, albeit one whose material isn’t always as sparkling as their personality.
There’s a lot of housekeeping before McNair gets down to business, much announcing of how crazy they’re going to be – and sometimes I felt this over-articulating of their zaniness could be dialled down. The moments when they show rather than tell – a dotty sequence involving a banana to the eyes, say – are often the most effective. A recurring swerve into the character of a Liza Minnelli-alike cabaret raconteuse works well partly because McNair makes no attempt to contextualise or justify it whatsoever.
