Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Twonkey’s Zip Wire to Zanzibar
Paul Vickers
Genre: Absurd Theatre, Comedic, Comedy
Venue: Other Room at Laughing Horse @ Dragonfly
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Joyous, pointless silliness as Twonkey takes us on a rollercoaster down the rabbit hole. “Dragonfly Cocktail Bar is Edinburgh’s longest standing cocktail bar where guests can enjoy a variety of original drinks as well as countless classic cocktails. A beautiful hidden space located just off of the end of Grassmarket, with a rich history of Fringe shows, and performances of free and Pay What You Can shows right throughout the day, all week, except Mondays.”
Review
Paul Vickers’ creation/alter-ego Twonkey has been a wobbly fixture at Edinburgh Fringe since the time of the Ancient Greeks. I’ve personally lost count of the amount of times I’ve seen his shows and I find it a comfort that they are all like episodes in an established sitcom; the characters and sections of the show change little, but their return always evokes a sense of nostalgia.
Was it a shock or not that, this year, Twonkey is dead (this probably won’t last) and was replaced with his widow, Twonketta? Twonketta is basically Twonkey but dressed like a French maid in red heels. I mean, it’s Twonkey. It’s the same person, the same voice, the same teenager’s bedroom of a mess on the floor. The apocalypse surrounding them is a horrifying junk shop of bastardised toys and puppets, picked up and apparently thrown away randomly, but all intentional and scripted.
There is no real narrative. If there were, I’d be worried. It’s a rambling train of thought that begins with an anecdote and usually ends in hysterical silliness, reminiscent of the Golden Days of The Man With The Stick on Vic Reeves’ Big Night Out. This will then go into a deeply quirky song on playback. Some will know of the performer’s career fronting the band Dawn Of The Replicants, beloved of John Peel. As the years have passed, the songs have been getting more and more catchy yet, over the top of it all, Vickers’ Cat Stevens-esque nasal (yet overloud) vocals punch you in the face like an enthusiastic teddy bear as he sways, somewhere between rapture and swotting a fly, singing words that are often semi-intelligible.
I’ve always loved the way that Vickers’ character gets enjoyment from the audience responses. You see a smile forming and a slight chuckle as he tries to deadpan another impossible scenario to delighted giggles. It’s infectious.
Most of the regulars are here: Chris Hutchinson, The Ship’s Wheel (EVERY YEAR I appear to be one of the recipients of its exposés), Steve Martin, the surprisingly intimate yet disturbing ‘Finger Fantasy’ – and this year, with the addition of some fly/ladybird hybrid thing called Cheeky Chops, which makes some sobering observations about the world amongst other nightmarish companions that come and go.
There were only ten people in when I went to the show this year, but at least a couple were die-hards, singing along to the Twonkey classic ‘I Was In The Pub’ in the closing ‘Superbowl Mega-Mix’.
It means nothing. You will leave no wiser than you went in. It has always been the case with the annual Twonkey shows down in the bowels of Grassmarket, and it’s no worse for that. Twonkey is what Fringe should be. It’s home-made, it’s outstanding in what it does, it’s small-scale, it’s challenging without being confrontational and it’s very, very silly. It’s not for everyone but, if it’s your kind of thing (as it is mine), you’re doing yourself a disservice by not checking it out. Chances are you’re going to leave confused but satisfied, somewhere between smiling and snorting, and taking ten minutes out to readjust yourself to reality.
