What a gas!
Brisbane Powerhouse’s Visy Theatre rang with the sound of fart noises, raspberries, gargling and peals of laughter at children’s cabaret ‘The World According to Farts and Other Extraordinary Sounds of the Human Body’ (10 March).
Nominated for the Children’s Award at Fringe World 2018, the show is written and performed by self-proclaimed fartistes Christa Hughes (Lady Vapour) and Jim Dunlop (Mr Poopy Pants).
Part workshop, part spectacle, the show is a rollicking, interactive exploration of the often frowned-upon sound effects made by the human body. Here, farting and burping isn’t chastised but celebrated, and the children in the audience took great delight in recreating taboo anatomical sound effects, naming them (‘What I Had For Breakfast’ was my personal favourite) and re-enacting the flatulent act on stage.
Singing a number of cabaret numbers with aplomb, including the French ‘La Vie En Rose’ which my eight-year-old mistook for Minionese, Christa ('Circus Oz', 'Machine Gun Fellatio') proved that her set of pipes aren’t just for belching on cue and gargling tunes.
Christa’s downtrodden “adequate assistant” and bumbling sidekick Jim ('Circus Oz') provided the backup music for the fartchestra; playing drums, slide whistle and tuba, but most importantly, perfectly cueing the violent and often long-winded body acoustics soundtrack.
For me however, the show’s pièce de résistance was Christa conducting a group of children on stage as they joyfully gargled the national anthem.
Conflatulations Lady Vapour and Mr Poopy Pants. ‘The World According to Farts’ is indeed a ripper!
