Twonkey @ Just The Tonic, The Caves

Twonkey, one of the maddest bastards in a city currently chock-a-block with them, provides an hour of surreal comedy

Review by Thomas Hamill | 07 Aug 2019
  • Twonkey

Bumbling about in his striped rainbow coloured T-shirt, Twonkey does the least he can to explain what to expect of his show before getting stuck into a variety of characters, songs and meandering stories over the course of the hour. It’s a strange trip where very little has any apparent meaning, but it still seems to function nonetheless. The gibberish is heavy, but it’s neatly constructed and gives the audience just enough magic to bring them down the rabbit hole into his world. 

The songs are the real highlight of the show, sung in a nearly-good, mostly-parodical way which gets the audience on side (entry-level Twonkey) whilst luring them into a fit of hysteria. The realisation at just how far we have come from sanity only emerges when a character appears from the back of the room, cackling and ringing a bell as they make their way on stage, causing one of the audience members to break down in uncontrollable laughter.

Twonkey's is the purest of alternative comedy and from the get-go you’re under no illusion that that is exactly what you’re getting. But Ten Year Twitch does begin to drag after a while as the songs follow a similar pattern, and whilst the Dadaist storytelling has a pleasurable freeness to it, it becomes hard to follow in places so some of the nonsense is missed.

After ten years, it wouldn’t be the Fringe without Twonkey, and it’s truly an ethanol-strong antidote to the wealth of stand-up sets currently taking place across the city.


Twonkey's Ten Year TwitchJust The Tonic @ The Caves (Just the Wee One), until 25 Aug (not 12), £5/PWYW