By Luke Voogt
Australian comedian and YouTube sensation Benjamin ‘Frenchy’ French is keen for rowdy gig as he comes to Geelong for the first time on Thursday.
“I’m very excited to visit, mostly just to try out the Tinder there – I’ve run out of people to swipe in Sydney,” he said.
“From the few people I’ve met from Geelong, I get the feeling it’s gonna be a pretty loose show, which should suit me to a T.”
The 30-year-old grew up in Wollongong or ‘The Gong’ amidst the self-depreciating humour of his mates.
“The minute a friend looks like he’s getting a bit too arrogant for his own good, he’s quickly ripped on and brought back down to earth,” he said.
French “was hating life” substitute teaching at local high schools when he started making short films in 2012.
“A lot of the kids were such p***ks, it took all my restraint not to trip some of them down the stairs, which is very specific I know,” he said.
“One (film) called Jamal is actually the reason I lost my teaching licence. Another was an application video to host the kids channel ABC3. Needless to say, I didn’t get the job.”
Five years later, he had notched up nearly 300,000 subscribers on Youtube, with millions watching his videos.
“It’s pretty epic, but I spend so much time on Tinder, I often don’t have time to reflect on subscriber numbers,” he said.
“I’m just a lanky Aussie bloke trying to make my mates and fans laugh with my rogue stories and jokes.”
Frenchy channelled musical influences like Lonely Island, the Vengaboys and Lil Dicky to create his favourite clip, musical video Friendzone, with mate Matt Zach Gervaise.
Two days after uploading the song it hit 26 on the Australia iTunes charts between artists like Justin Bieber and Coldplay.
“We put it up because we thought it’d be funny if it got on the charts,” he said.
“We spent the whole week thinking ‘is this real life? It was so nice being about to afford Guacamole for that week.”
Like his videos, Frenchy’s rude and crude onstage humour dives into tinder banter, Aussie drinking culture, arrogant footballers and all the other good stuff”.
“But it’s never far enough for my fans,” he said. “I do some normal jokes too, obviously. I’m not an animal.”
He “bombed hard” his first onstage appearance, but luckily “only my best mate Scotty was around to see”.
“It was horrendous,” he said. “I could not have gotten less laughs, apparently midget Olympics isn’t good material for live shows.”
Frenchy’s church-going parents don’t swear, smoke or drink, and they hate his comedy, he said.
“Somehow their third-born has the filthiest mouth possible. They’re taking me out of the will for sure.”
Frenchy brings his new show Unleashed to Geelong Performing Arts Centre on Thursday night.
