A Night of Extreme Insanity: The Flying Karamazov Brothers

I’ve become a bit of a West End aficionado of late thanks to a certain person at work who has a connection to free theatre tickets.

Three shows in three weeks is pretty good going if you ask me.

First on the agenda was a night with the Flying Karamazov Brothers.

All I knew was that it was a circus/juggling act, but it was so much more (and much more mad then I could have imagined!).

The K. Brothers are four Americans performers who take the stage dress in kilts. The best way to describe the show is as a Vaudeville review.

Juggling maybe what ties the show together but comedy in a Marx Brother/Monkees vein provides the undertone while songs and dance (also very funny) tie everything together.
On top of that, all four ‘brothers’ are talented musicians.

Each show the brothers ask to audience to bring a selection of items they want to see lead brother Dmitri juggle.

The audience then votes on the three best items – at our show they chose an umbrella, a cowboy hat and… a fish.

After a couple of goes Dmitri managed to juggle all three for a full 10 seconds.

My favourite juggling act was rather simple. The theatre lights went out and in darkness they threw glowing balls that changed colours throughout. Magical.

For one lucky/unlucky audience member, they got the chance to get right up close to the action. The fiery action.

A woman from the crowd got to put herself in the centre of four crazy men throwing flaming sticks back and forth in front, and behind, her.

Throughout the evening the brothers introduce nine “Items of Terror” including knives, dry ice, an egg and even fire. As a final act they skilfully juggle all the items between them.

I haven’t laughed so hard at such an insane performance in a long time. All the audience, adults and kids alike, had a blast.

Go see it for a random, feel good time.

www.fkb.com/uk
Vaudeville Theatre, 404 Strand, London, WC2R 0NH.
Until 10 September