It’s Twonkey’s tenth year on the Fringe and he’s here to celebrate with a show that may or may not be the most baffling yet. For those who have never experienced the surreal world or Mr. Twonkey, it’s worth mentioning that the reviews can often be as confusing as the show but I’ll do my best to make some sense of the surreal world of Twonkey’s Ten Year Twitch.
Twonkey creates a world that Salvador Dali would dismiss as a wretched fever-dream
After an opening song where Twonkey takes a moment to limber up for the show ahead, he proudly displays a jacket he has stolen from the Luton Airport Neil Diamond exhibition. This leads effortlessly into an admission that, as a child, Twonkey was afflicted with an invisible hoover obsession. After these intimate revelations, we get to the meat of the piece wherein we learn that Twonkey’s ever-villainous manager, Mr Pines is up to his old tricks. After losing his best act to a vaginal fireworks accident; he is seeking a suitable replacement and his plan somehow involves a weather-making machine hidden in a grotesque patisserie in the Dordogne.
As ever, Twonkey creates a world that Salvador Dali would dismiss as a wretched fever-dream. There’s a flying pig whose teats leak claret, an experience in an ethereal roadside cafe, a light rimming, and I even get bitten by a tiny Dracula glove puppet. We also get an appearance from Leonardo da Vinci and a song about his failings in aviation engineering. For the fans, there’s the welcome return of the sad lion, Chris Hutchinson who has developed some grey whiskers and the return of the psychic ship’s wheel of knickers (a regular feature of the shows where Twonkey reveals the recent sexual encounters of his audience).
Closing out the show, Twonkey admits, “I really don’t know what it means but it seems important to me”. That’s very likely the best way to sum it all up. He may not be everyone’s cup of tea but I loved it and I recommend the experience.
