Review by Julia Chamberlain

Is ‘witless farrago’ was too much of cliché to use? Although I have to admit, it’s not actually a farrago.  Disingenuously inept, infantile, messy and repetitive maybe, but there have been pains taken to make this show.   It’s tech heavy, with a lot of sound effects, video inserts, radio mics and leaping about, and nobody dropped the ball there.    

Tim (Heidecker) and Eric (Wareheim) are cult TV hits and as I’m not an avid YouTube/internet/media junkie, I have missed them entirely. However the theatre was full and an extra show has been put on, which makes me think there are a lot of very unwell people in the world.  However, Tim and Eric  sell out enormous rock gigs back in the US and filling Leicester Square Theatre is no mean feat. The audience were popping with hysterical anticipation, when the lights went down, they whooped like U2 were about to hit the stage.   

The warm up was provided by DJ Doug Pound.  Seen  Kenny Everett?  Seen DJ Danny? Seen Ivan Brackenbury? Seen Doug Pound.  He got some call and response going with ‘knock, knock’ jokes and their remixes and some hideously inappropriate pick up lines as a socially awkward, low-energy character piece.

So, to the main event. Two heavy blokes, one short, one tall, march on in nude body suits with grotesque, oversize lumpy genitalia fashioned from old pairs of tights and some beanbags, singing a one word song about diarrhoea. Performed against a back projection of fake adverts for diarrhoea pants which enable you to go where you stand, showing that the performers were not only in touch with their inner seven year old, but also those of 99 per cent of the audience.   And it went on, with exhortations to join in, clap along and sing at the top of your voice.  It was as though the writers of Viz and an infant school playground had been given free reign to put on a show.    

Apart from the diarrhoea song, there were bloody nipples, vomiting into the audience and food throwing, plenty of distressing bodily functions, men dressed up as ghastly parodic women.

It’s old-fashioned raucous, pantomime comedy dressed up for the computer generation.   It even had the sketch standard of mocking an award ceremony, the partners breaking up as one wants to fulfil his artistic destiny, it was at some points briefly reminiscent of Ernie Wise’s ‘Plays wot I wrote’.  

The stage and back projections were a riot of noise, movement, colour and excess, so that the sudden segment on The Universe, with a night sky and star trails and  a quiet, hypnotically delivered lecture became an oasis of calm for brief minutes. Not only did it give the performers a chance to catch their breath, but the audience too got a chance to focus and recuperate from the aural and visual assault.  

For people familiar with and fond of their work, this was a chance to see their heroes in the wobbly flesh and to enjoy familiar ‘bits’ – Celery Man? Oo Mama? Spaghett? All seemed to have their devotees.    

I couldn’t help feel there was a claque mobilised here, as the whooping and cheering was from very definite spots in the audience, far forward of me. And when they helped people onto the stage to join them for a celebratory dance, there were a disproportionate number of very attractive girls in very Short Skirts in the front row, and a bunch of young men who didn’t look awkward or gangly on stage, who seemed to know what to do and weren’t embarrassed to dance; surely that’s not a usual audience demographic? Could they have been actors? Is this what Tim and Eric do and I’m the numpty who isn’t in on the joke?  I simply don’t know.     

In the end, if you’re a fan of fast changing, would-be anarchic, scatological comedy you’d probably have a blast at this, but for me it was a nightmare of being trapped with a bunch of overexcited children running amok in their chaotic world.

It was a constructed piece, an assemblage of clips, sketches, songs, noise and energy without any heart and soul.  I suppose it’s not essential, but this overstimulated, short attention span, rackety and enervating stuff is not personal and mature comedy but intentionally wild and puerile, refusing to grow up. Love it or hate it, there’s no middle ground.  

Published: 27 Jul 2011