The Umbilical Brothers

Royalty Theatre
Wed 21 March
until Sun 25 March


Not only are The Umbilical Brothers simply funny, they also know how to do theatre. When they're not making you laugh, they're still an impressive spectacle to watch.

Performing under the guise of a 'rehearsal', David Collins and Shane Dundas, were relaxed (yet in character) from the get-go. The theme proved to be a novel one, suspending audience disbelief, and allowing the duo to go in any direction they pleased. The audience plants are fantastic, so to the obsessive fascination with a woman they thought to be Morgan Freeman, sitting front-row. In the spirit of self-awareness that the show really aims its humour at, the audience plant helps to take a picture of Morgan and The Umbilical brothers, before revealing many other Morgan's from previous nights. The results are hilarious. It's as if The Umbilical Brothers knew that word-of-mouth, and reviewers such as myself would give their jokes away - so they pushed the public in-jokes even further.

Being a 'rehearsal' allowed The Umbilical Brothers to really obsess over their material. The results of which included a nice familiarity and pace across the show, as well as the most amazing use of a camcorder I've ever seen on stage. It's as if they brainstormed a million ideas of how to use the camera, and included their top 200 in the show. Some bits, such as the sketch of finger puppets in the big auditorium, proved a little disappointing to see time and time again, but the boys still managed to endear us. All up: a very, very good show, from start to finish.

Steven Williams