In the first of their twenty-fifth anniversary shows, Norfolk’s legendary sketch duo The Nimmo Twins (Owen Evans and Karl Minns) return with a two hour ‘Best Of..’ featuring their favourite sketches, songs and monologues as well as a first peek at the new material for their brand new show in August ‘Holt? Who Goes There?’
Almost from the first line the audience were howling with laughter! Sketch after sketch after sketch with a variety of characters and musical comedy songs to make the evening not only whizz by, but to give your face and stomach a full-on workout.
Their popular characters included:
The Council – appeared first to give us a quick outline of the format intertwined with their interesting local political views
Billy Boy – with his fast-paced blue country song – and notice I am saying ‘blue’ not ‘blues’
Anne – with her wonderful poetry with precision timing and delivery (how on earth did Owen managed to keep a straight face through this sketch?)
She Go – my favourite – covering ‘lady issues’ to give advice to the Norfolk women (I can’t think of balloon animals in the same way again)
We had a sex chat sketch with the guy who wrote ‘The Cromer Sutra’ which launched the audience into another level of hysterics. We had a Norfolk Speech and Language class for those coming to live in Norfolk to get to grips with the accent. We had Norfolk’s view of Londoners coming to live in the county (of which nothing I can repeat here).
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The comedy songs were fantastic and were delivered with articulation – the Sugar Beet Poets with their jazzy sultry style and their song with as many Norfolk town names as possible was very, very clever and very funny. Haus Werk with his ‘dating song’ mentioning how pot pourri is too expensive so he sprays cornflakes with Lynx before a lady comes over.
The physical sketches were interspersed with slide sketches on a big screen – it allowed them time for a costume change and a quick break however it didn’t give us a break from the laughter. I’m still uncertain whether the top 20 comical headlines from Eastern Daily Press were real, and how Norfolk train announcements can be so funny, I’ll never know.
The show is on one hand very locally themed as their play on words and accents was a strong theme, which is their main humour, however you didn’t have to be a local to understand the concepts and still find it funny. The sketches are clever and well thought out, there has been a lot of time and effort put into them to squeeze out every drop of laughter from you.
A couple of times Owen & Karl broke character and had giggles themselves, which made us laugh even more. We were treated to a sketch of new material which will feature in their new show, and it’s funny.
It’s risqué, politically incorrect in many places, yet the humour is top notch and in some places is exceptionally close to the line and for some it’ll be over the line, however this is the freedom of comedy and refreshing to see these days.
The Nimmo Twins are at Norwich Theatre Playhouse until 23rd January and their new tour is in August 2022 with tickets already selling fast.