There will be few Fringe sights this year more unsettling than The Wobbly Waiter, a dismembered, dead-eyed puppet & frying pan fixture, advancing down the aisle… to you. To the strains of the Custard Club song. Except, a short while later, The Ship’s Wheel appeared. The relief in the room was palpable once a woman near the front agreed to take the expensive sausage and two fellows on the left the Huge Red Knickers. Their most intimate adventures successfully described by the mind-reading ship’s appliance (despite one denial), Twonkey returned to the stage to continue something resembling a revue of his greatest moments from the last ten or so years. Nine more than he’d ever envisaged when putting his first show on in 2010. Might’ve been 2011 but everything’s fluid in the Twonkeyverse.
The evening might have begun on a negative with a song celebrating The Flying Tailor, a parachute innovator who died jumping off the Eiffel Tower in 1912 attempting to test-fly his life-saving device, but it provided plenty of wriggle room for more cheerful stuff. Tiny Al Capone featured, Idle Goat Girl too and we were advised to try booking a ski holiday after taking an Ecstasy tab. Which led seamlessly to one of Twonkey’s catchiest laments ‘Moosk’, inspired by a tormented night in Galashiels after a pre-bed Ovaltine. A highlight was the touching duet with Chris Hutchison concerning the World War 2 incident when Twonkey’s wife ran off with Mussolini. Amidst broken and breaking props and a scratchy soundtrack Twonkey persevered, even finding time for a competition, the audience member guessing (nearly) correctly the origin of the cheese rewarded with an in-your-face performance from the revered Transylvanian Finger Fantasies.
The only twitch missing was the customary stomp-out from a baffled, frustrated audience member, livid at what their partner had dragged them to.
Reviewer: Roger Jacobs
Reviewed: 9th August 2023
North West End UK Rating: