The existential undertone to Chesney Hawkes's The One and Only? The end-of-the-pier entertainment lurking within the Pussycat Dolls' Beep? What do you mean, you've never noticed? I recommend a crash course at Frisky and Mannish's School of Pop, the zealously supported cult cabaret hit du jour. This is a seminar with a difference, for which actors Laura Corcoran and Matthew Jones don stockings, corsets and heavy eyeshadow to educate devotees of musical comedy in "the unfamiliar elements dormant within ubiquitous pop classics".
Rearranging songs to highlight their barely concealed ridiculousness is a joke as old as pop itself – but Frisky and Mannish deliver it with galvanising pizzazz. Their ascent through London's cabaret circuit has been as startling as Frisky's cobalt-blue wig. Within a year of founding the act, Corcoran and Jones were playing as far afield as New York and Berlin.
Their personae are those of the kohl-eyed queer and the dominatrix: "This isn't fun," snaps Frisky, "this is education". But the goth-sex aesthetic is at odds with an essentially innocent act. 1990s American female pop was in thrall to cannabis, claims Frisky – then the duo perform a blissed-out take on Joan Osborne's What If God Was One of Us? by way of proof. The Bangles' Eternal Flame, sung with a twist of psychosis, becomes a stalker's signature tune.
As you can tell, the jokes are sometimes obvious. Elsewhere, they're the opposite: a medley of lyrics that feature questions ("Why does it always rain on me? Who let the dogs out?") or a spelling lesson using the songs R-E-S-P-E-C-T and D-I-S-C-O is eye-catching but not funny per se. A little more invention may be required to stop these lessons getting formulaic.
But there's no arguing with the pair's ability; their pop-song mash-ups are skilfully layered and musically surprising, and both Corcoran and Jones have strong voices and stronger personalities. Mannish's version of Lily Allen's LDN, as crooned by Noel Coward, is a blast, and brilliantly sends up Allen's music-hall tendencies. The sun is in the sky for Frisky and Mannish and – for an hour at least – you won't want to be anywhere else. Brian Logan
