A sizeable crowd took the brave decision to bring their 6-year-olds to the Gilded Balloon for an hour of bum jokes on Sunday morning. ‘Just because we’re seeing Mr Snot Bottom doesn’t mean you have to be Mr Snot Bottom’, one wary parent warned.
In fact it was the parents who were the butt - if you will - of many of the jokes. The Australian man in the stripy jacket and yellow trousers - no guesses how they became that colour - took to the stage with a funky dance number that already had the young audience giggling, his ludicrous facial expressions were reminiscent of a poor man’s Jim Carrey. ‘Are there any dads with beards here?’ he asked, ‘What about the mums?’ The kids were hooting. He knows his audience.
Or so it seemed, until a toddler started clambering onto the stage and suddenly the spiky-haired performer looked uncomfortable and standoffish. Later, a girl was brought up on stage and looked terrified of this revolting character. Another boy left for a while and Mr SB impertinently asked on his return where he’d been: ‘I got fed up with the pumping,’ came the reply. ‘It’s disgusting.’
It is disgusting, but that’s the point. The show has other dimensions, too; there are moments of pantomime, with a misbehaving sign and confusion between a phone and a pineapple. A lot of the kids seem to think he’s an idiot but that’s also the point. He has two sidekicks: Derek, the professional hanky; and Phlegm - ‘I’m an actual piece of phlegm, I’m just really evolved’ - who sings nursery rhymes. These two got a lot more sympathy and affection from the audience than Snot Bottom himself.
His delivery of toilet humour is unashamed and brilliant. It’s not clever – a highlight was transposing a flatulent sound effect into the ‘Lion King’ wildebeest stampede, which is as clever as it gets – but there is no doubt that this show does what it promises. It was stinky. It was silly. It was fun.
