Melbourne International Comedy Festival review by Steve Bennett

The Umbilical Brothers make very clear that this show is not recommended for children. That disclaimer probably ought to be extended to adults, too, for it’s a profoundly irritating hour of skillful but charm-deficient physical and sound-effects comedy. Though, for the sake of balance, it should be mentioned that plenty in the sizable audience would disagree with that verdict.

The premise is that the duo bound on stage intent on doing a kid’s show, The Inside Out Show – an in-joke on their own short-lived TV programme, The Upside Down Show – only to discover that the crowd are substantially older than they expected.

‘There’s a kid in the front row with a beard,’ one says. ‘Which one?’ ‘That girl there.’ Yes, they really did write that down and made a conscious decision to keep it in.

The action flips between their on-stage struggles and backstage bickering, laced with pacy, if unrealistic crosstalk. But then things spiral into odd directions.

Things start well. A flashback in which Shane Dundas tries to score some mime off David Collins’s shady dockyard dealer is amusing and inventive. Then some funny shenanigans with the supposed language lock that prevents them from swearing shows off their verbal dexterity to excellent effect. But the punchline is lame; they cripple the device so it works in reverse, reducing all the words to jibberish except expletives such as fuck, shit – and ‘Tony Abbott’. Oh, the satire!

Then the darkness comes over proceedings as they kidnap and imprison Mickey Mouse, and enact out an extended, brutal mass murder sequence in which the cast of the Brady Bunch are executed in increasingly savage ways. It’s sick, but not especially funny, artful or imaginative. Their vocal and physical talents are peerless; but deploying them to act out what seems like the violent fantasies a troubled teenager is to squander them.

Events are closed by an interminable fight scene between invisible cast members, which seems a pale imitation of the Umbies’ best set piece from their past, involving a punch-up with a 9ft bear, and just serves to drag out the show.

Kidshow seems a purposeful attempt by the duo to distance themselves from the family-friendly elements of their past and appear modern and edgy. The irony is that the gentler physical humour of newer kids on the physical comedy block such as Kraken or The Boy With Tape On His Face are much, much funnier than this disappointing effort.

Review date: 6 Apr 2014
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett