Review – The Umbilical Brothers: A KiDs ShoW (Not Suitable for Children)
If you were to cast performers for a parody of a children’s television show, the Umbilical Brothers would seem a pretty good option.
No doubt drawing on their experiences as hosts of the Upside Down Show, David Collins and Shane Dundas here play a pair of children’s entertainers who slowly realise their audience is full of adults.
Concluding that only “perverts” would attend a kids show without bringing their children along, the duo change up their show halfway through to make it appeal to perverted sensibilities, resulting in a night of drug use, mass-murder, incest, infanticide and child molestation jokes.
A promising concept, but sadly not quite delivered with enough energy to really pull it off. Children’s entertainers are insanely hyperactive in real life, so parodying them requires an extra-special buzz that David and Shane don’t quite manage.
Maybe they’ve lost a bit of their oomph over the years, or perhaps they were just having a flat night; nevertheless, there were still occasional flashes of brilliance by the slapstick veterans.
