Fringe review: Frankie McNair – Huge Ass Mindset
Frankie McNair’s show blends confessional candour and bruising honesty. ★★★★
For Frankie McNair, huge-ass-ness is a state of mind, a Love Island attitude, a two-fingered salute to the world that they’ve struggled all their life to cultivate. Not that you’d believe a word of that as they explode onto the stage, all high-kicks, energy and attitude.
A chaotic comedian, the pace never flags in an hour that veers from anti-depressants (so chic), to a late-in-life autism diagnosis via the politics of queerness and salad spinners, with a slightly out-of-place character spot in the middle. While not every beat lands with a laugh, McNair is irresistible; their energy, little details and frank confessional style are never less than compelling.
The show does tackle some difficult topics, including sexual abuse, and the final 20 minutes are a tough watch as McNair delves into a particularly difficult incident. The content won’t suit everyone, though to be both clear and fair this is very definitely not a trauma-dump or (even worse) a sad, dead dad show. Ultimately (and perhaps surprisingly) it is a love letter to comedy and comedians, to the community who have nurtured and supported McNair and quite literally helped grow their ass to where it is today. May we all be so lucky.
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Huge Ass Mindset is essentially a space for McNair to set their own agenda: they’ll talk about what they want to talk about, make jokes about what they want to joke about, and laugh their ass off at anyone who tries to stand in their way. And that is very huge ass mindset indeed.
Huge Ass Mindset is playing at Criterion at the Garden of Unearthly Delights from February 17 – March 1
