The Nimmo Twins

The Nimmo Twins are a sketch comedy duo from Norfolk, UK comprising Owen Evans and Karl Minns. Formed in 1996 in Norwich, they first came to national attention after their show Posh Spice Nude was a sell-out success at the 1997 Edinburgh Festival. Appearances on BBC One's Stand Up Show followed and they became regulars on Radio 4's Loose Ends programme with Ned Sherrin. They returned to Edinburgh in 1998 and 1999, selling out in critically acclaimed shows both years. They toured Britain, played Paris, New York and two sell-out years at the Singapore Comedy Festival.

Owen Evans was raised in Cromer and attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA) where he studied with the Moscow Arts Theatre school. As an actor he has appeared in innumerable plays and theatre productions. He has also appeared in television adverts for Daewoo Cars, Nat-West, Ikea and Flora.

As a stand-up comedian, Karl Minns won the Daily Telegraph Open Mic Award in 2001 and played the Montreal and Melbourne Comedy Festivals before returning to Edinburgh in 2002 in Comedy Clone with Nina Conti and Patrick Monaghan. The Nimmo Twins then became the face of Adnams Beer in Norfolk in TV radio and billboard adverts for two years.

The Twins got their start with the Crude Apache Theatre Company. Karl Minns has written plays, comedies and musicals for both stage and radio. As a television writer he has written for Karen Taylor, Laura Solon and Phil Nichol. He wrote the TV sitcom pilot Moonmonkeys starring Karl Theobald and Dan Antopoloski. He also wrote a weekly column for the Norwich Evening News from 2002 to 2007. He was awarded the EDF Regional Columnist of The Year in January 2007. He was also nominated for the Press Gazette Media Awards Regional Columnist of the year in the same year.

The Nimmo Twins briefly expanded to a trio in 1999 with the introduction of Andrew McGibbon, who performed with them during the spring and summer of that year.

The first Radio 4 comedy series The Nimmo Twins in... was broadcast in 2000 and, as of 2007, is still being repeated on BBC 7, a BBC digital radio station devoted to comedy and drama. Episodes included: A Stiff Upper Lip - a tale of a Victorian era gentleman without a beard; and Lord of the Onion Rings - the tale of a Tolkien-obsessed man who works in a petrol station. Their second series, The Rapid Eye Movement, about the troupe of actors performing a man's nightly dreams, starred Martin Freeman, Chris Langham and Kevin Eldon. The show ran for three series until 2005 and was a huge critical success. The second series was nominated for the Douglas Adams Award for Radio Comedy in 2003.

In their native Norfolk, they are best known for their yearly sketch show, Normal for Norfolk, which over the last ten years has grown from a pub show to break box office records at the Norwich Playhouse, playing to over 4500 people over Christmas 2005.

In the early hours of 14 December 2007, Karl Minns was attacked while walking home after a performance at the city's Playhouse. He was badly injured, suffering a broken arm and fractured skull. The duo were forced to cancel the remainder of their shows for the year.^[1]

Minns wrote the pilot show Mouth to Mouth, for BBC3 in January 2008. The pilot was well-received garnering good reviews and was commissioned as a 6 part series and broadcast in November 2009. The show consisted of six interlinking monologues, whose stories intersected until the whole overall story was told. The series was largely critically well-received. The Stage described it as an "intricately-plotted love hexagon...superb and understated". The Times called it 'brave and thought provoking telly, that is also very funny". The Radio Times called it "superbly written and beautifully acted". The Independent however described the show as "appalling" and "the worst programme on television". Fans of the show contacted the reviewer, pointing out that as his review had missed five major plot points, it appeared he had only watched the first five minutes of the show before committing his opinion.

As a writer/performer Minns has also contributed to two series of Russell Howard's Good News on BBC3, credited as Programme Associate alongside Dan Atkinson and Steve Williams. The first series aired in winter 2009, the second series ran from March to May 2010. A third series is expected in the Autumn.

References

1. ^ "Comic's skull fractured in attack". BBC News. 2007-12-15. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/7145833.stm. Retrieved 2007-12-30. 

External links

• Nimmo Twins page at the Crude Apache Theatre Company
• Nimmo Twins - official website

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