Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

Diva recognise diva. 

For the follow-up to her best-newcomer-winning show, Frankie McNair has adopted the persona of Tabatha Booth, a washed-up but resilient Hollywood gal full of ego, gin, nicotine and show-must-go-on pizazz. For the spotlight is all she has now.

With the DNA of Liza Minelli, Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland, Booth is an affectionate grotesque. Maybe McNair foresees one of her possible futures in this demanding darling of the stage. They certainly share a past, as Long Fork Lady was a surreal highlight of McNair’s wildly freewheeling debut last year – and it is the routine Booth fears she will only ever be remembered for, decades after she last performed it.

An Intimate Evening With… is her last-shot attempt to reinvent herself and rewrite her legacy. She has hired ‘one of the greatest storage rooms in the country’ and invited the great and the good of the entertainment industry to witness her triumphant comeback as she showcases all her talent. But mainly to gaze upon her and adore her, that’s what her damaged soul needs. 

This is not a nuanced take on a familiar archetype, with Booth becoming increasingly desperate as guests fail to show up, budget restraints curtail her ambitions and technical snafus threaten to derail proceedings. Only her browbeaten young stagehand Riley keeps the show on the road, just about.

But the delight comes from McNair’s commitment to the do-or-die extravagance and her command of comically awkward physicality. She nails Booth’s pathetic eagerness to show what she can do, tap dancing terribly at the slightest provocation, performing her literal but ill-informed version of the Goldeneye Bond theme or demonstrating some open-spot stand-up.

The show revels in old-school silliness. Tills ker-ching whenever she mentions the sponsor, badoom-tish greets a punchline, accents stray off course and Booth smokes increasingly long cigarettes as the pressure gets to her. Even the most contrived pun is afforded a lavish build-up.

McNair occasionally lets the Booth mask slip to reveal the real her is having a whale of a time with this playful, over-the-top parody. Though such moments also make you want to see a little more of the charismatic talent who created all this.

The script isn’t up to the same level as the superb performance, and there are lulls over an hour as McNair returns to the same comedy well. But then she conjures up a suitably memorable closing routine that lays bare the emptiness of Booth’s ambition, and we momentarily feel sorry for the self-centred monster whose failings we’ve spent the last 50 minutes laughing at

• An Intimate Evening with Tabatha Booth starring Frankie McNair is at Melbourne Town Hall at 9.10pm (8.10pm Sundays, no show Mondays) until April 23.

Review date: 9 Apr 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival