twonkeys cottage,twonkeys castle and twonkeys kingdom form part of a oddball trilogy of one man edinburgh fringe shows from paul vickers:

Mr Twonkey is a true comic original, whose shambling delivery conceals a real talent for wordplay and whose ridiculous catchy songs won't stop running round and round in your head.

THE SCOTSMAN FOUR STARS.

He sounds possessed by the spirit of Josef K and John Cooper Clarke, as uncomfortable as it sounds. Eccentric? Without question. Essential? Only if you feel the pomposity of modern pop needs to deflated by a maverick telent. Mad as a box of someone else’s hair.

SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY FOUR STARS.

Bizarre and surreal, Twonkeys Castle involves sock puppets, a toy bi-plane, snatches of recorded birdsong and a costumed Vickers singing self-penned songs about (variously) silent screen actress Lillian Gish and a beer and gin cocktail he invented called Hot Beryl. It’s close to genius.

THE HERALD FREE FRINGE ROUND UP.

BELOW TWONKEYS TOP TEN FAVOURITE STORIES FROM THE SHOWS:

ONE:The Count Of Christopher

The count of Christopher was a renowned jeweller from Antwerp with a remarkable ability, sharp round eyes and big fingers. In 1842 he was offered a lucrative commission to build a necklace for the king of Greenland, Herr Roundberry, a man of confused sexuality, with a mean hairy stare and an enormous flat wirey head. He so desperately wanted to be a woman, he set the count the task of making a piece of jewelry that would switch his sex. The task was of course impossible, but the count made a brave attempt using extreme symmetrical patterns, and small glass cubes containing the bottled leather of owls. The handover ceremony was nothing short of spectacular, as they gorged themselves on goose eggs while swans were forced to smoke pipes. Sadly when the jewelry hit the king’s neck it was obvious that a sex switch had not occurred. He simply looked like a big hairy man, absolutely dripping in oblong rune stones. “I'm every woman....” (Big deep voice)

TWO:Powerful Soup

Beside an oily lamp I fed her grapes, her face like mink fur, starved of her famous red lips and good heath, which she had enjoyed for many a year. We bled her earlobes to relax her, but she was no easy storm to calm.

November was now upon us and she was redheaded with fever and the children were lighting candles by placing the wick inside her burning ears, to receive a burning flame. As December draw in, I had wired her up to the electricity supply and she had become the main generator for the whole of a street.

After much trough the doctor found a clue to her sickness. “What have you been giving her to eat?” he said as he blinked and chewed on his tobacco. “Tomatoes mainly, she loves tomatoes”. “You fool” he shouted as he stood up to stroke the cats belly. “Tomatoes are the root to her fever”. “That’s a shame, I’ve just made a wonderful tomato soup for her. I can’t drink it all by myself”.

“I love tomato soup” screamed the doctor as he ran down the stairs to meet the steaming pot. He sunk his cup deep into the soup. “Hot stuff!” he cried and I fell down the stairs to meet him, and then he pulled down his trousers and proved to the whole room he was a man of some maturity. He tried it with a washing machine and then jumped out the window into the rose bed like a cannonball. “Wire him up!” I shouted to the children. “He will be an ideal power supply for the whole of Wall Street”.

And so it was.

THREE:The Toad

They call me “The Toad”. This is due to my green leather hold all filled with who knows what. A gun in a violin case is normal round these parts, but a violin that’s actually a gun, well that’s a little bit more unusual. But I’m Graham Lightfoot of the Graham Lightfoot orchestra and I’m a 1920’s jazz assassin.

I’d just heard of a band of jivebags riding high on the back of a sheet music heat wave. So I swung open the door of the Blue Duck and there on the stage was the hottest band in the suburbs - The Sly Fox Widow Movement. They’d just started playing their biggest hit “She’s old, but she’s loaded” The song had gone straight to number one in the sheet music chart and had recently featured in the new Douglas Fairbanks flick a Bourbon Before They Burn The Monastery.

So I started shooting my load. My first hit was the saxophonist, I took him from the balcony but the shots to his neck actually improved his playing. So I tried the tuba man, got him right in the back, but his absence improved the overall sound of the band. So I tried to take out the little chick with the spoons, but she was too small to get a handle on. Meanwhile the cops had been called, so I disappeared like a rat down a drainpipe.

I made my way to a village called Cuffley Breaks, the kind of place where people’s cars are bigger than their houses. So most nights people just sleep in the car, as there’s more room for food preparation and such. I made my way into the nearest joint; a club called the paperweight ran by a guy called Mickey Loose. To my horror I walk straight in on a secret gambling racket run by Mickey himself. So I put my cards on the table and threw some dice and then escaped out of the toilet window before things got too rough. They don’t like music in this town. There was a guy with a gramophone and wax cylinder of Houdini talking to a clown, but let’s just say they took care of him. Music makes me piss blood and I don’t want to hear any more of it.

I made my way to the Spider’s Web where all the bands hang out. The oom-pah oom-pah is as loud as bass drums, boom and the oboe tweets. Bands like to do some pavilions i.e. search the streets midafternoon after a sound check just looking for someone to rough them up with wheel crook. Alec and the Hammers are playing Paddy’s Loft, this should be a good hit. When I enter the venue everyone seems to be wearing large fluffy earmuffs and sitting at the back of the room, very curious. I know this band sometimes milk a duff note but this is ridiculous. Tall Grunt was on the plug stage with a speaker ram ripping it up with a soup duke but the whiskey was still and the rhino driver, wow it hurt.

THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN HE PLUGGED IN THE ROOM HOWLING HORROR and then silence. ……And then more silence…and more silence still ...I can't hear anymore... they can’t hurt me... not now.

FOUR:The Dumpty Dynasty

After the famous death of Humpty Dumpty And the omelette incident of his wife Dorothy Dumpty which lead to her ultimate demise The sons of the Dumpty's, Dick and Darren Dumpty Continued as orphans in a circus ran by Arnold Glutley in the Victorian era But it was a tiresome act which involved them jokily sending up the death of their parents But the wind of change was blowing round the orchard And eventually nobody came at all And Arnold embarrassed went out into the garden And buried the un-sold ticket rolls And then returned to the house in a drunken fury Smashed the heads of Dick and Darren Dumpty And ate them both alive And all the kings’ horses and all the kings’ men Were of no real use yet again!

FIVE:Love Struck Malcolm

Have you heard about the ordeal of love struck Malcolm? He would use scuba diving equipment so he could survive under water and view the frolicking maidens near the summerhouse. Violet was his favourite. He was dumb struck by her doll like head. She had eyes like currents and her lip to tongue retardation was a mesmerising delight. She filled his mind with a whirlpool of echoes. Sometimes he would bark at her while hiding in a bush, or push pegs near her while she lay on the lawn counting her money. Often he would spend hours cutting the hen out of cornflakes’ boxes to make 3 dimensional Easter baskets. He would leave them round the back for her, near the bins. He was a true and helpless romantic. One day his friend Barney Big Hands gave him some advice. “Why don’t you just ask her out?” He would need to be brave to bite the bullet, so using a blunder buster he blasted a love letter in her general direction, towards her front window. But sadly it fell short ending up in the gutter of a nearby nunnery. So he tried shouting very loudly, but sadly to Violet it was all largely incoherent.

SIX:Barbara Bananas

Barbara Bananas was a much-loved monkey and member of the lab team. On July the 14th, on the eve of her 21st birthday, she went missing. The lab never used Barbara in any experiments; in fact she was always treated with far too much respect. She was also the greatest none human physiatrist the world had ever known. We believe she boarded a train to Hollywood and was on the brink of securing a four-picture deal with M.G.M. Unfortunately when she boarded the train, we believe she may have been intoxicated by the train. She may have proceeded to kill everyone on the train to reduce weight and increase the speed of the train. Now the nerve centre of any train is the engine room, where the coal is poured into the harness. Barbara may have made her way to the front of the train, possibly proceeded to kill the driver with her monkey hands. She could have started shovelling bananas and coal, perhaps making the train reach a crazy pace. But all this is rumour and hearsay, all we really know is when she arrived in Hollywood her four picture deal with M.G.M was suspended indefinitely. “Please pick up the phone Barbara duck, we are thinking of you chuck. Chuck, you know you are a very special monkey. Please pick up the banana bone phone”.

SEVEN:Town Crier Lane

Town crier lane was a very poor street full of very poor people. This was only amplified by the fact they had a lime green postbox that only took third class mail delivered by lame starlings. In fact, the town crier the street was named after, was only paid in drawing pins and broken wardrobes; Life was bollocks. So there was widespread concern when the street awoke one day to find they had lost all their clothes during the night. The panic subsided when the local polar neck sweater factory donated their excess stock. However the elastic of the reject tops was very tight round the neck causing the residents to choke, and restricting any sudden movements and breathing. Overnight these garments also went missing leaving everyone naked yet again. The arrow of suspicion pointed to the village goat which was free to roam during the night. Could he have been eating everyone out ….of house and home? Then they discovered a goat poo round the back of the gooseberry bush containing piles of barely digested polo necks. Thankfully the goat had gold teeth which were hastily removed and the crowns where given to a French designer called Pierre. He made everyone wool body suits based on his own excitement about the newly opened Pompidou Centre, and everyone clapped.

EIGHT:Dancing Jim

In the era of the British raj There was an elephant chimney sweep called dancing Jim His truck would suck up the soot as it wormed its way to the ring ting Honk! Honk! Fill him with water Honk! honk! Fill him with air Light a fire under dancing Jim, it won’t hurt him Honk!honk!honk! It is hurting him Put it out! Fire don’t agree with Jim Jim like it hot But not burning him In the temple of the seven suns The chimney was full of tiger mucous A side effect of a rather lively night in Honk! Suck! Honk! Suck! Jim suck it all down him Then a space was cleared for what Jim do best Dance Sturdy tap shoes were hammered in place “The teddy bears’ picnic” was placed on the gramophone at ear shattering volumes!

Ring!ting!wink!tap!wink!tap!honk!honk!

NINE:Knackered Old Twits

Up in the cosmos there’s a distant moon Called Stockwell Port East It was built by a laser beam Bouncing off a dream They fluxed and unleashed a loud murmur Following the emergence of small borrowing creatures Known as whisk flukes They live in barrels They eat warm onions They speak rubbish They live off cheap offie knockdowns They mine blue coal There’s no progression No sense of time Just restless borrowing For knackered old twits!

TEN:Eerie Bill

I have lived for many years with a dog that has behaved in an increasingly bizarre manner. He’s a sausage dog and I nickname him Eerie Bill. Every once in a while his nose vibrates and he coughs up a small slice of cake. I now know this to be a warning that he’s about to shape shift. Sometimes he does it at the most inopportune moments. Once I was in a curiosity shop and he shape shifted into a 1930s antique lamp. When I looked around, this item was attached to my leash and it made me look like I had been shoplifting. But perhaps most embarrassing of all was an incident on Bridlington Pier when he shape shifted into a full roll of he-man wallpaper, and proceeded to unravel all over the promenade bringing the place to an absolute stand still. In the chaos the he-man wallpaper was ripped apart, and when Eerie Bill tried to shape shift back to a sausage dog, all that appeared was a pile of bacteria, a ball sack, some fungi, and dung.

IF YOU HUG SNAILS THEY TURN INTO HORSES!