Fin McLachlan – Can I be Honest?

The Motley Bauhaus, 28 September 2026

Fin McLachlan turns ethics, overhead projectors and blatant lies into a chaotic little masterpiece of charm.

Fin McLachlan opens Can I be Honest with a confession delivered so boldly it sets the tone instantly: he lies too much. From there, he gleefully tangles himself in contradictions, offering stories you can either believe or not, and inviting the audience into the slippery fun of deciding what counts as truth. As a philosophy major, McLachlan grounds the chaos in the 3 C’s of ethics, a framework he once studied at university and now uses as the show’s baseline. It becomes both a genuine moral compass and a comedic device, guiding the audience through the messy terrain of honesty, identity, and self narrative.

Armed with an overhead projector part prop, part philosophical battleground, McLachlan diagrams, scribbles, and dismantles his own arguments in real time. And then there’s his “lie detector”: a gloriously obvious prop that adds another layer of playful absurdity. Whether it’s buzzing, flashing, or simply sitting there as a theatrical joke, it reinforces the show’s central question, what does it even mean to measure truth when the storyteller keeps shifting the ground beneath you?

He’s an instantly charismatic performer: sharp, funny, and disarmingly warm. His writing is clever, his timing tight, and his ability to pivot between absurdity and emotional honesty gives the show its weight. Even when the logic collapses (frequently by design), he sells every twist with a grin.

Opening night wasn’t without hiccups, but McLachlan handled every technical glitch with humour and ease, folding imperfections into the performance.

Once the tech settles, The Philosophy of Lying is poised to shine even brighter.