I'm not too sure what my 5-year-old Mia made of Dr Brown at first, an odd-looking man wearing white tennis shorts, a suit jacket, shirt and tie, woolly hat and safety goggles. He was a fruity fright.
She fell in love with his Singing Tiger sidekick straightaway as he serenaded and joked with the kids (and big kids) before the show started. But Dr Brown? Let's just say it took a while. For starters, he emerged from a tatty nylon storage bag (his "house"), that had been on stage all along yet hadn't moved a bit. Then there was the fact the crazy doctor (real name Philip Burgers, of Los Angeles) doesn't talk, apart from gibberish while playing tennis with a dad from the audience.
But when he started catching a goopy nutella sandwich on his face, breaking into bouts of furious bum shaking and pretending to eat whole chairs, Mia beamed, so excited she didn't know whether to stand up or sit down. She also joined three mass stage invasions to help Dr Brown do things like don his gumboots.
And if you think this sounds madcap, then you have to wonder what Dr Brown's strictly adults-only mime-cum-surreal slapstick show that he also performs at the comedy festival is like. The Singing Tiger (Stuart Bowden) is a star in his own right, as he drives the show along with meandering, whimsical tunes.
The pair even include subtle life lessons, like breakfasting well and cleaning up after yourself. Not that the kids noticed; they just wanted the doctor to eat more poo (which looked suspiciously like nutella) out of a baby's nappy. And so did I, which is why it's a clever show that's a hoot for kids, big and small.
