Arts > Comedy

Holt? Who goes There?

Norwich Theatre Royal

07/08/22

It is barely eight months since I experienced 'A Load of Old Squit' at Norwich Theatre Playhouse, a show billed as a 25 year 'Best of The Nimmo Twins' retrospective, and that came with the promise of brand new show in the summer. 'A Load of Old Squit' was my first Nimmo show ever. I enjoyed it immensely, surrounded as I was by serial returners relishing a show that seemed to distil and celebrate everything that being Norfolk 'born and bred' was, and still is, all about. Warts and all. Everybody had their favourite characters and sketches. The laughter was spontaneous and sustained, the material self-deprecatingly infectious. I came away feeling as though, after living in Norfolk since 1982, I had now, finally, become one of them. Friday night's performance of 'Holt? Who Goes There?' was delayed by almost half an hour due to a technical hitch, giving the audience a chance to avail themselves of an extra pre-show drink, but it meant that we were all suitably loosened up and raring to go by the time Karl Minns and Owen Jenkins took the stage.
 
Even though this was only my second Nimmo Twins' show, the format was already reassuringly familiar – a mixture of skits and sketches interlinked by the weird headlines and wonderful stories that had graced the pages of our Eastern Daily Press and Eastern Evening News, pseudo-celebrity rumour and gossip about our local television news presenters and, of course, plenty of references to the local football team, the state of the trains, and the nightmare of our city centre roadworks. And, of course, those frequent reference to the second-home owners of the North Norfolk coast that gives ‘Holt? Who Goes There?’ its tongue-in-cheek, faux-xenophobic, title.
 
Even though this is billed as a brand new show, it does include some material that had been tried out during ‘A Load of Old Squit’. Not that quality comedy does not benefit from second helpings. I remember memorizing entire Monty Python sketches as a child, and some of Owen Jenkins’ monologues, especially those of Professor Newton Flotman, are every bit as clever and enjoyable as anything from The Two Ronnies, and his creation of Anne, the shit EDP poet, is as funny as any of the characters from ‘The League of Gentlemen’.
 
The audience’s favourite, without doubt though, is Minns’ characterization of She-Go, resplendent again in her FILA tracky bottoms and neon-pink acrylic hoodie, a single mum from the Larkman with an irresistible instinct for survival, and achieving pleasure in increasingly difficult times. Whilst the Nimmo Twins generally steer clear of the tripwires of party and gender politics, there is always either a sensitive social awareness or a nostalgic fondness to be found in every one of their characters.
 
To sum up, then. If you have never seen The Nimmo Twins, then you better be bloody quick. Their run of shows at Norwich Theatre Playhouse sold out yonks ago. If you are quick, you might be lucky as they are doing a one-night-only show at Norwich Theatre Royal on August 23rd. If not, just “keep on troshin”. And be quicker off the blocks next time around.