Twinks Burnett describes herself as a “brand-new comedy baby.”
Which is technically true.
At the time of our Instagram Live Q&A, she’d been gigging for about three weeks.
Three weeks.
Five gigs.
One Bitches in Stitches lineup.
And somehow the stage presence of someone who looks like they’ve accidentally wandered into the wrong decade after spending ten years holding a microphone.
Because while Twinks is new to stand-up, she’s not new to performance.
Before comedy, Twinks was a burlesque performer. Before burlesque, she was a muthafuckin’ legend on the festival circuit. Before comedy (and today, still), there was nightlife MCing, styling, community-building and co-founding my favourite London hang, Heartbreakers Club — one of London’s most joyful FLINTA-forward nightlife spaces.
In other words: she’s not new to being seen.
She’s just found a new way of doing it.
Like many people who end up in comedy, Twinks didn’t suddenly wake up one morning and decide to try stand-up.
The idea had been rattling around in her brain for years.
“I’ve always wanted to do it. Always.”
The problem wasn’t desire. It was getting started.
As a self-described “ADHD diva”, she knew she wasn’t going to magically wake up one day and wander into an open mic by herself.
She needed deadlines. Homework. Accountability. Structure.
So when a friend sent her a comedy course, she signed up. What followed was a familiar experience for many comedy-curious people.
Panic.
Catastrophising.
Imagining the absolute worst.
“I thought it was going to be me and a bunch of incels called Steve.”
Instead? She found a room full of kind, supportive weirdos trying to do the same thing she was.
Funny how often that happens.
The thing stopping us from trying something new is usually not the thing itself.
It’s the imaginary version we’ve created in our heads.
One of my favourite insights from our conversation was Twinks’ description of the difference between MCing and stand-up.
According to her:
“MCing is sprinting. Stand-up is marathon running.
Both involve a microphone, an audience, and making people laugh.
But they require completely different muscles.”
As an MC, you’re responding. Filling space. Reacting in real time. You’re steering the room. Stand-up asks something different.
You have to write.
Refine.
Edit.
Memorise.
Workshop.
Trust the material.
And then somehow… make all of that look effortless.
“As an MC, I kind of just open my mouth and stuff comes out. Comedy is the writing, the finessing, the workshopping.”
It’s the difference between being conversationally funny and intentionally funny.
The best comics are both.
For someone who has spent years on stages, Twinks was surprisingly honest about how terrifying she finds stand-up.
In fact, she told me she’d rather perform an unrehearsed burlesque act than stand in silence waiting for a joke to land.
And honestly, BBs?
Same.
I’ve been doing stand-up for eight years and still get stage fright before almost every show.
The difference isn’t that experienced comics stop being nervous. It’s that eventually, you stop interpreting nerves as evidence that you’re bad. Instead, you learn to see them as evidence that you care.
Twinks described the silence between setup and punchline as almost unbearable.
Then she described what happens when the laugh finally arrives:
Relief.
Adrenaline.
Joy.
Validation.
Permission.
Suddenly everything clicks.
And for a brief moment, you’re flying.
Every comic knows exactly what she’s talking about.
At some point our conversation shifted from comedy to style.
Which sounds like a detour, but it wasn’t. Because the more Twinks talked, the more obvious it became that comedy, style and confidence are all connected.
As a stylist, she draws a distinction between fashion and style.
Fashion, she argues, is often about trends, consumption, capitalism. Being told you’re broken and sold a product that promises to fix you.
Style is different. It’s self-expression. Identity. Storytelling.
“Style is something that lives with us forever.”
She spoke about jewellery as adornment. As magic. As memory.
About looking at someone’s rings and seeing a timeline of who they are.
And then she said something that felt bigger than clothing:
“I think people have been taught to be small.”
And honestly?
I haven’t stopped thinking about that sentence since.
Because she’s right. We’re living through an era of beige minimalism.
Neutral palettes. Safe choices. Algorithms that reward sameness.
But people are exhausted.
And when people are exhausted, they start craving colour. Play. Whimsy. Personality.
Twinks believes we’re heading back toward fun.
I hope she’s right.
The other thing that struck me throughout our conversation was how similar Heartbreakers Club and Bitches in Stitches actually are.
On paper, they look completely different:
Night clubs and comedy stages. Needle drops versus punchlines. Two turntables and a microphone.
But both our spaces exist because someone got tired of waiting for permission.
Heartbreakers Club was forged in the wake of heartbreak.
A divorce.
A friendship.
A playlist.
The shared desire to create something joyful.
And what emerged was something much bigger — a room where people could show up exactly as they are.
Dress up, dance, make friends (and maybe some bad decisions), and take up space.
And maybe, just maybe, stop performing for the male gaze for a few hours.
“Being away from the male gaze is so fun.”
I don’t think that sentence needs much explanation.
If you’ve experienced it, you know.
Towards the end of our conversation, Twinks said something that perfectly captures everything she’s building:
“Joyful resistance is powerful.”
Not because it ignores reality. Not because it pretends everything is fine.
But because it refuses to surrender joy.
Laughter matters.
Friendship matters.
Community matters.
Especially now, when we’re constantly being told to shrink. Compete. Be quieter. Take up less room.
Fuck that noise.
The answer though, isn’t always another debate.
Sometimes it’s a dance floor. Or a comedy gig.
Sometimes it’s a room full of women laughing so hard they forget to be self-conscious.
And honestly?
That feels pretty revolutionary.
I ended our conversation by asking Twinks how she’d want people to remember her if she could never perform again.
Without missing a beat, she answered:
“Campy. Kitschy. C*nty.”
Which, frankly, sounds like a five-star review waiting to happen.
She’s only a handful of gigs into her comedy journey, but she already understands something a lot of performers spend years trying to learn:
The stage doesn’t need a smaller version of you.
It doesn’t need a safer version of you.
It definitely doesn’t need a beige version of you.
It needs you to show up in full Technicolor; every brilliant shade that shows the world exactly who you are — even the parts that make them stare, judge, or clutch their pearls.
And dancing anyway.
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