TWONKEY'S BASKET WEAVING IN PERU (W.I.P)

Sunday 7th April 2024, 4:00pm to 5:00pm - The Bill Murray, LONDON

I am the spirit of the mountains, elf of the sea air, a basket maker. The Award winning fringe legend returns with a mysterious melodic new adventure.

Clowning at its very best ***** Scotsman.

Kate Copstick in the Scotsman wrote last year "If you have missed the many magical years of Twonkey at the Fringe then get yourself along and experience the most creative crazy in show business."

Twonkey is starting to think a simple life in Peru might be the way forward. Follow him with his donkey, puppets and songs to spiritual enlightenment or death.

Mr Twonkey (AKA Paul Vickers) is a surreal act of twisted songs, adult fairy tales and elaborate props. His goal is to mix funny anecdotes and heartfelt moments creating an enjoyable, uniquely Twonkey vision of a better world.

Twonkey is a musical comic with an operatic imagination.

**** Beyond the Joke

Being in his presence for an hour is delightful.

**** The Times

Twonkey's Basket Weaving in Peru will also be part of the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe at Dragonfly each evening at 20:15 hours (apart from Monday's).

Twonkey's Basket Weaving in Peru is the 14th Edinburgh Fringe show from the crazy mind of Paul Vickers.

5 stars

THE SCOTSMAN

Fringe 2023

Kate Copstick

If you have missed the many magical years of Twonkey at the Fringe then get yourself along to the Voodoo Rooms and experience the most creative crazy in showbusiness.

For those of us who have accompanied the man on his many adventures over the years this is like a wonderful reunion of many of your past loves. Sing along with The Flying Tailor as we chant “the worst part of the orange is the rind” before the song takes a gothic dive. Tiny Al Capone makes a welcome return and, just as quickly, is tossed aside to make way for some mushroom related silliness with a Goat Girl In Trouble.

Yes, we are talking drugs. But we are fine because we have moved on to a song in the style of Kraftwerk. My notes say 'Galashiels', 'Jaffa Cakes' and 'bushy eyes'. It is tricky to make sense of Twonkey, once he gets the bit between his teeth. But sense is overrated. This 'best of' show is like catching comedy lightning in a jar. Custard Club - his abandoned musical love letter to custard – has long haunted Twonkey and he shares some extracts with us here. Or tries to.

The entire room goes into meltdown now. This is a glorious disaster. This is clowning at its very best. I cannot remember seeing an audience so reduced to rocking back and forth as tears of laughter flowed. The stage is littered with devastated puppets and props by this point and and Twonkey is muttering something about trying to make it slicker tomorrow.

The fortune telling ship's wheel makes predictions, Chris Hutchinson gets a makeover, we play a fascinating game entitled Sniff My Cottage and all five of us in the audience leave bathed in seratonin.

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4 stars North West End Roger Jacobs

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.

4 stars Entertainment Now Avantika Sood

Twonkey’s greatest twitch is not explicitly pointed out. Perhaps it’s a bit in his show, perhaps it’s the whole show, perhaps it’s not in the show at all. Nonetheless, it doesn’t take away from the fact that you can count on Twonkey to point out absolutely ridiculous, somehow-devised nuggets of whimsey and nonsense.

Armed with an army of some of the most disturbing puppet contraptions you’d probably ever have the pleasure(?) to lay your eyes on, Twonkey presents his musical show and tell. It’s an amalgamation of musical numbers that talk about a lot of nothing, and bits in between that talk about a lot of nothing too. But it’s the nothing that makes you chuckle, or laugh whole-heartedly if it’s your thing.

Unfamiliar to the Twonkey universe, I’ve seen described as weird and wonderful, the hour was a massive suspension from any reality I ever knew. The only thing that resembles familiarity are the melodic crashes of sound, making up the numbers he sings to. They share a similar DNA to the surrealist music making of the 60s and 70s. As mentioned, the lyrics are whacky and paint whacky landscapes of his imagination.

The show is most definitely out there, out there in a land so far away, semi materialised in the Twonkey imagination. There’s no formula, rhyme or reason, just a whole lot of whimsy and a self-aware scrappiness that engulfs the performer’s repertoire. The talent it takes to make utter nonsense become the content of a show is entirely impressive. Not to mention the obvious musical proficiency that is intentionally downplayed by playfulness, making it all the more wonderful to experience. If you give it a go, there’s no doubt you’ll walk away either in splits, impressed, confused, or all of the above. It’s not your typical show, it’s on the alternative side of alternative, but I reckon that’s what makes the Fringe for some of us.

Twonkey’s Greatest Twitch @Voodoo Rooms Ballroom 6:30 until the 27th of August (apart from Monday's).

Like an electrocuted Tommy Cooper in a car crash with Frank Sidebottom, 'being in his presence for an hour is delightful' **** (Times). An award-winning Fringe legend, 'he creates wonderlands of weird' **** (Scotsman). The ship's wheel will be sent into the crowd to read minds. A goat girl will be in trouble, a tiny Al Capone will be discovered, and we will be able to see inside the pub from outside the pub - wobbly fun with songs and puppets. 'We will examine the tapes closely when we return to London' (Britain's Got Talent).

What Broke David Lynch?

21:00 hours Aug 5-13,15-20,22-27

Greenside @Nicolson Square, Fern Studio

'A simply cracking cast' ***** (Stage)

(For the companies last play 2016’s Jennifer’s Robot Arm)

It’s 1980, David Lynch is at a crossroads and can’t get his plans to make his second feature, Ronnie Rocket, off the ground. So he picks a script written by someone else off a pile, The Elephant Man, it sounds like a Lynch film. This adventure would send him to foggy London and offer up to him worldwide stardom.

Award-winning Fringe firebrand Mr Twonkey aka Paul Vickers plays David Lynch in this exciting yarn about making 1980 cinema classic. Miranda Shrapnell also stars as a fizzy femme fatale. The double act of Robert Atler and Steven Vickers complete the cast playing multiple roles like four headed Peter Sellars.

Paul explains: “ I was feeling like a lo fidelity Orson Welles when I got the bug to do the show it was after watching The Elephant Man again and reading the book of David’s life Room to Dream. The early parts of a career are always the most interesting part, its when the events of someone's life tests them to point they create some kind of legend. David’s story is as rich and strange as his films. Our play zooms in on a small part of David’s development with humour and passion it’s more than a sophisticated piece of fan art it has its own point to make. Sometimes executing an idea can come close to executing the person behind it”

Photos: Toby Long@PhotoExpress Edinburgh.

>>Twonkey’s Greatest Twitch

I'm back so let's do it this time: London Soho Theatre 19th october 7.15 pm :

Paul Vickers aka Twonkey is back with a bonfire of goodies like Leonardo Da Vinci he’s ahead of his time, but behind on his rent. Its his first London show sense the incident, so to celebrate he’s putting on a show that brings together all his best bits from ten years on the Edinburgh fringe. He’s only in town for one night before trip to Margate to see his gran, so hurry hurry hurry.

"A pioneer of the indie/fringe crossover"

Guardian.

Ex- lead singer of John Peel favourites Dawn of the Replicants.

Winner of the Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality 2016.

Lead singer with Paul Vickers and The Leg.

“He creates wonderlands of weird” 4 stars

The Scotsman

"Mind-boggling from start to finish" 4 stars

Broadway Baby

“Mind bending fables” 4 stars The Times

“He’s a one-man cornucopia of the bizarre” 4 stars Fringe Guru

BOOK NOW SELLING FAST!

TWONKEY’S TEN YEAR TWITCH

Soho Theatre London

Mon 16 Mar 2020

7.15pm

'A pioneer of the indie/fringe crossover.' Guardian

Time to enter the Twonkeyverse again. Climb aboard his Weird but Wonderful Waltzer and away we go… up and down and roundabout for a bit, but then he takes hold of your car and spins and you are off, pinned to the wall by a centrifuge of silliness.

Twonkey's Ten Year Twitch, reviewed at the Edinburgh Fringe 2019 * * * *

You simply have to go with it and thrill to the ride. Trying to make normal sense of a Twonkey show is like trying to get a cup of water from a bucketful that is being swung around your head. Having said which, Mr Pines, Twonkey’s manager, is still a very bad guy, the Psychic Knickers still reveal deep truths and Chris Hutchinson is still quite sad.

We meet da Vinci and his landlady before setting off to find the evil cake-decorating shop in the Dordogne where fake weather is being made via a Film Noir-influenced sequence in which rimming saves the day. Of course there are songs, some positively singalong.

The grand climax was slightly marred by a defective lighter and an over-enthusiastic hand with the pump, but the most wonderful thing about the Twonkeyverse is Twonkey himself – his little mutterings and fillers when things go awry are like the Funny Fairy blowing in your ear – and so although the drama might have been dented, the fun was doubled. Watch out for The Crone. She is a keeper.

KATE COPSTICK THE SCOTSMAN

Photos: steve ullathorne

GIGS! GIGS! GIGS! GIGS! GIGS!

In no particular order here are some live events in the year 2019 that feature Paul Vickers aka Mr.Twonkey:

THIS BLOG IS CHAOS BUT IT DOES TELL YOU STUFF!

TWONKEY'S TEN YEAR TWITCH

at the Prague Fringe 2019 details below:

Café Club

Míšeňská

Address: Míšeňská 71/3, 118 00 Praha 1-Malá Strana

Dates: 24.05. – 26.05.

Time: 21:00 – 22:00

Matinee show.

Paul Vickers and The Leg//Fox Opera//Dr.VZX Moist

Hosted by Fuzz Bat Gigs

Saturday, March 23, 2019 at 2 PM – 5 PM (We are on about 4 PM)

Leith Depot

138-140 Leith Walk, EH6 5DT Edinburgh, United Kingdom

We are also supporting the fantastic Hamish Hawk and The New Outfit

at Sneaky Pete's ( 73 Cowgate, Edinburgh EH1 1JW)

on the 6th of May, 2019.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Paul Vickers and The Leg some info:

The leg was formed in Edinburgh in 2005, by Dan Mutch, Alun Thomas and Pete Harvey. In 2018 they are joined by John Mackie (ex Khaya) and James Metcalfe from the Pineapple Chunks. They also record and perform with Paul Vickers from Dawn of the Replicants and Twonkey fame.Pete has also been playing with Modern Studies and King Creosote.Dan, Alun and James have been performing occasionally as Tardigrades too.Alun used to play drums for Withered Hand, Its complex.

The Leg's Live performances have been described as 'Verfremdungseffekt' by Neil Cooper theatre critic for The Herald and as 'eternally brilliant' by David Pollock in The List they have also been called buckfasted-up psychopaths and possibly dangerous by the voices in there own heads.Paul Vickers has been told "He creates wonderlands of weird" by Fringe godhead Kate Copstick in The Scotsman and The Herald said 'he has verbal ideas flying from him like sparks from a Catherine Wheel with voice flipping from abrasive gargle to sneering panto-dame witch.'

You need to book tickets and fast between them they have done more John Peel sessions back in the day then Wile E. Coyote has sticks of dynamite.

Also they are trying hard to finish a new album which has been called fucking brilliant by a mysterious source.The final word has to go to Julian Cope who said Paul Vickers and The Leg are “Like a 50s scientist on a flying bedstead.'

THE TWITCH IS COMING TO THE BUXTON FRINGE INFO NOW JUST IN:

Sat 13th July, 10:00PM (at The Old Clubhouse)

Sun 14th July, 4:00PM (at The Old Clubhouse)

EDINBURGH AND BRIGHTON FRINGE LISTINGS NOW LIVE ::::::::::::::::::::::::::TWONKEY'S TEN YEAR TWITCH:

For the Edinburgh Fringe 2019 the venue is

Just the Tonic at The Caves

Just The Wee One.

Dates: August 1-11, 13-25

Time:16:10

As for Brighton Brighton Fringe 2019:

Laughing Horse @ Caroline of Brunswick (Free,bucket at the end)

03 May 2019 21:30 - 22:30

04 May 2019 21:30 - 22:30

and get this poster down you:

NEWS JUST IN!

Twonkey will headline Peter Pancakes

at the Monkey Barrel Comedy Club

Always a fun night!

on Monday the 11th of March

Doors 7:00pm, show 8:00pm

FREE, with donations at the end

9 - 11 Blair Street

Edinburgh

EH1 1QR

Twonkey will also appear on the bill of Spangled Cabaret

The Blue Arrow Club

Glasgow International Comedy Festival:

323 Sauchiehall St, Glasgow G2 3HW

Monday 18 March

8.30pm

£8/£7 Spangled Cabaret has been bringing you monthly alternative variety for 11 years now! An anything goes mix of: mirth, burlesque, magic, macabre, poetry, drag, performance art and more. This edition features some of the funniest people around, many of them flying in the face of normal, or are tricky to classify!

Featuring: Scott Agnew, The Creative Martyrs, Derek McLuckie, Anna Secret Poet, Gabriel Featherstone, Miss Innocence Bliss, The Guru, Mr Twonkey, Lacy Rain & Kim Khaos.

Twonkey will also be appearing at

The God Damn Debut Slam:

Thursday April 4, 2019 at 6:30 PM – 9:30 PM

Scottish Poetry Library

5 Crichton's Close

Edinburgh, United Kingdom EH8 8DT

Poster by Super Allan/Photos by Photo Express.