one4review | On 18, Aug 2025

Being a fan of the experience that is Twonkey is not an easy thing to summarise, nor an easy thing to recommend. I am truly of the belief that he is the Fringe’s very own David Lynch with all the wonder and weirdness that implies. He is a mad genius, cutting his own path through comedy but, much like Lynch, a lot of people would be left unable to understand the strange new places it takes them.

This show marks over ten years for Twonkey – the clownish alter ego of Paul Vickers – at the Fringe with his mix of songs, spoken word, puppets and comedy that is usually put under the blanket of “cabaret”. The humour in the show derives not just from jokes, which are often delivered with a deadpan matter-of-factness but also the strangeness of them – one only need hear how he relates an audience member’s recent sexual experience after they took a pair of silken underwear from his ship’s wheel that he sails into the audience and states plainly to them “you used to be a Michelin star chef” before narrating how they have developed a fetish for making vast quantities of food for imaginary customers.

The plot of the show is simple, if equally absurdist – Twonkey is dead and has been replaced in the show by his wife Twonketta, who runs a woefully unsuccessful rollercoaster based on the Hans Christian Anderson story The Little Matchgirl. Twonketta dreams of having the big success of the nearby – much more exciting and dangerous – rollercoaster the Zipwire to Zanzibar and is assisted by various – and honestly distressing – puppets such as Steve Martin (made from sanitary towels) and the flugelhorn-tooting Tutti Cnutti. But plot in a Twonkey show is often more the bay leaf in a stew – not essential but bringing a certain depth to the experience. And what an experience it is.

I honestly don’t think another show has ever made me laugh harder. It’s not continual chuckling throughout, but the gags when they come are so completely unexpected, so bizarre, so wonderfully unique, that the laughs they bring are as much mixture of shock and disbelief as they are humour. And, like with the works of Lynch, there is a distinct impression that even when you, the viewer, are lost, Vickers himself knows exactly what is going on and it’s not that the art is chaos, merely that you fail to perceive its order.

Not for everyone, perhaps, but if you’re interested in something truly unique, truly absurdist and surreal, something that really exemplifies the experimental spirit of the Fringe, chances are this show is for you.

*****
Reviewed by Tom M
Other Room at Laughing Horse @ Dragonfly
20:15 (1hr)
Until the 24th