Performer: Mr Twonkey
Photograph by:
Show: Twonkey’s Night Train to Liechtenstein
Venue: Heroes @ Dragonfly
Promoter: Paul Vickers

Tell me about your Edinburgh show.

It’s a little bit sad this year so bring your handkerchief. I have to leave Mr. Trombone and Chris becomes a gigolo to make ends meet.

Tell me about your first gig.

It was at The Front Page in Carlisle with a calypso pop band called Snoopy on Sax. The night ended with me jumping around the venue inside a bin which really took it out of me.

Do you have any rituals before going on stage?

I sometimes drink half my body weight in apple juice. I need the puppets all in the right areas, so they can be picked up and dropped at the right moment. I like to collect myself in a local park.

Tell me about your best and worst review.

It was great getting five stars in The Stage for my play Jennifer’s Robot Arm. Everyone had worked so hard I even cried. It was not so great getting horrible reviews from a guy called Jonney Cigarettes in the NME back in the day (when I fronted John Peel favourites, Dawn of the Replicants. I’m not sure what I did to him to make him hate me so much. Thankfully it didn’t stop us getting a hat trick of singles of the week.

During this Edinburgh run, do you plan to read reviews of your show?

Yes. I always do I know you’re not supposed too but I have to look.

How do you feel about reviewers generally?

I think on whole they are nice people trying to get on with their own jazz.

In April 2018, YouTube comedian, Markus Meechan (aka Count Dankula) was fined £800 for training his girlfriend’s pug dog to do a Nazi salute with its paw, in response to the phrase ‘Gas the Jews’. Do you believe Meechan committed a criminal offence, and why?  

If you do something like that you’re always going to get some heat.

It sounds like a sick joke that got too big.

Are there any subjects that are not suitable for comedy?

There’s comedy in everything but I think it’s fairly clear when you have gone too far.

Have you ever gone too far?

Yes but me going too far is more about been too odd or doing something for too long.

Looking back over your time as a comedian, tell me about the best gig of your career.

It’s hard to say if a gig goes really well I forget about it. So if it goes well there’s nothing to worry about – it’s like fresh air.