The Umbilical Brothers performed at Brisbane Powerhouse on Thursday (25 May) to a packed crowd for the annual Brisbane Comedy Festival.
This was the highlight of the festival for this reviewer. The atmosphere was electric: neverending, large roars of laughter even after the show was finished.
The laughs began before the show with jokes on the projector as the audience filled the theatre. 'Funerals aren’t as fun as they sound'. Next, a pre-recorded clip began of David Collins outside the Powerhouse sprinting towards us. Except. . . Hold on, wait, it was a livestream! He sprinted into the room camera in hand. He ran around the stage to the entire audience's surprise. This set the chaotic tone for the show.
It was like nothing I’d ever seen. It’s the same old Umbilical Brothers you know and love but this time with the wonders of technology.
Production ran smoothly. . . I think? It towed that perfect line of not knowing what is meant to go wrong, what did go wrong, what was improvised, what was scripted. In the end it doesn’t really matter. It gives a feeling of everything is just about to fall apart (but of course never does). This gaslighting creates an absolute excitement of the unending possibilities of what could possibly come next.
The whole crowd was hysterically laughing the entire show. Everyone was fully engaged and engrossed in the moment. This was in part due to the large amount of audience participation from that camera in the middle of the stage. One of their tricks was standing in front of their camera and superimposing their mouth over an audience member’s. It felt like we were part of the show, like it was one big family.
After the show there was a brief Q&A. We were told the show was over and we could leave, yet no one did.
Their jokes never missed. I think I laughed at every one. Sometimes they involved prop comedy with their iconic bear hand puppet and baby dolls. Often, their jokes were cleverly written to emphasise the strengths of green screen compositing and overlaying. I quite liked their re-creation of the famous '2001: A Space Odyssey' infinity scene. Jokes interwove brilliantly together with storylines throughout the show. One such joke was heads exploding, sometimes even audience members'!
Umbilical Brothers' 'The Distraction' was a special show. An accumulation of their decades of experience evolved into the modern age. It was unpredictable, exciting, hilarious, groundbreaking and a truly memorable experience.
