Sweet Grassmarket
6th-30th August
21:00
“I am you, I am you, I am yooooo,” sings Mr. Twonkey in one of the many bizarre but brilliant songs that punctuate the show. There were many lines from the songs that stuck in my brain but the refrain above made me think: this is comedy—if that that’s the correct word (it may not do the show justice)—that lies in a tradition of eccentric/absurdist /subversive art that from time to time manages to rise up from the deeps and defamiliarize your world—off the top of my head: Michael Bentine, Spike Milligan, The Goons, John Lennon, Ken Dodd, Tommy Cooper, The Mighty Boosh, Victor Spinetti, some 70’s children’s shows/cartoons. This stuff makes you feel different.
This is no nostalgia trip, mind. The audience responded intensely, but the laughter wasn’t corporate laughter, it was probably best described as nervous laughter: but who can explain? We all laughed hysterically as Mr. Twonkey squeezed a plastic pig between two wheels of Stinking Bishop cheese, wrapped it in a plastic chain and announced: “He’ll never get out of that!” I had my 16 year old son with me and to his great joy he won a ticket for an individual performance of a Transylvanian Finger Fantasy: Mr Twonkey clambered over the seating and gave the performance—a paper puppet on each finger. My son loved it. The only criticism here mind is that Mr. Twonkey didn’t let him keep the winning ticket, claiming that it took him 2 hours to make—tight! We left the theatre as we arrived with Mr. Twonkey prone on the floor his head under the curtain. I suppose this might not be for everybody, but we loved it. And in the words of another one Mr. Twonkey’s songs—quickly to become a mass singalong—“Take a dip, dip, dip, dip, dip, dip, dip, dippppppppppp!” FIVE STARS
*****
Reviewer : Paul Rivers
