Checking in to Fratelli Fresh for a pre-show chow down I spy Dave from the Umbilical Brothers sitting solo. I figure he’s here for a similar pre show chow down.  As I am shown to my table, he is shown the door. See you soon, I say to myself, anonymous audience member mumbling anonymously. I wonder if he had in fact eaten or drunk anything or was he miming a degustation.

Later in the Mens at the Roslyn Packer Theatre, after a pre-show bladder voiding, I wondered if I’d blundered into the show proper and was part of an elaborate audience participation manoeuvre as I encountered a sink with a washing and drying apparatus a certain dexterity; a device where you can simultaneously wash and dry your hands if you’re not careful. Timing is everything.

As the lights go down and the Umbilical Brothers leap out onto the stage, their nonstop barrage on our funny bones reiterates: timing is everything.

KIDSHOW is like a perverted Playschool or wacked out Wiggles concert born of a direct response to the belly button boys working on the Upside Down Show, a TV series for tots.

Certainly unsuitable for tots, KIDSHOW appeals to the child, albeit the naughty child, in all of us.

It’s an absurd, surreal, visceral, vulgar, physical, foul mouthed fandango, fuelled by popular culture, popular song, and perpendicular antics.

Nina Simone and the Brady Bunch will never be the same again and beware the indiscriminate taking of Tic Tacs.

KIDSHOW is that marvellous amalgam of brain and brawn comedy, anarchic yet so beautifully controlled, that it’s awesome.

It not only deserves 100% attendance, it demands it. And remember, the show is 53% better with a full audience.

KIDSHOW certainly shows that the Umbilical Brothers put the fun into funiculus umbilicalis.

KIDSHOW plays at the Roslyn Packer Theatre, Hickson Street, The Rocks till June 27, a woefully wee window of a week, but try, try, try not to miss it.