Thom Tuck Brings SCARAMOUCHE JONES To Edinburgh Fringe

It's 1999 Millennium Eve. As the world counts down to the new millennium, a one hundred year old clown clown staggers offstage and into his dressing room, after his final ever performance.

Alone, he removes his seven white masks and begins to speak - for the first time in fifty years.

Scaramouche Jones is a haunting and lyrical one-man play by Justin Butcher, chronicling the life of a man who has seen too much. From a birth in Trinidad's slums to snake-charming pits in Morocco, war-torn Europe and the depths of Dachau, Scaramouche's tale is grotesque, beguiling, and filled with unexpected grace. Thom Tuck is delighted to perform his third incarnation of this funny, poetic and moving allegorical play encompassing three continents and the first half of the twentieth century.

Thom Tuck first played the role at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2005, just weeks out of university. Ten years later, in 2015 he returned to it. Now, in 2025, he takes it on once more - and plans to reprise the role every ten years until he is as old as the character: one hundred. It's a tongue-in-cheek ambition, perhaps - but also a heartfelt one.

Tuck, now 43, is a stalwart of the Edinburgh Fringe, having performed here across theatre, sketch and stand-up in nearly every edition since 1999. From cult favourite Thom Tuck Goes Straight-to-DVD (nominated for Best Newcomer at the Fosters Comedy Awards) to several years' of lauded performances with celebrated sketch show The Penny Dreadfuls, he has built a reputation for intelligence, intensity and originality. Over 50 five-star reviews (from Thom's solo work and the Penny Dreadfuls combined) and countless loyal audiences later, he remains one of the festival's most singular voices.

Whether this is the third of ten iterations, or Thom getting closer to the halfway point in a lifelong experiment, is yet to be seen. But what's certain is that Thom Tuck's Scaramouche Jones offers an unmissable hour of theatre - delicate, unflinching, and quietly extraordinary.

Thom Tuck is an actor, writer and comedian. Theatre includes Death of A Salesman (Royal & Derngate), Three Sisters (Southwark Playhouse), Coalition, Brexit (both Spontaneity Shop), A Slight Ache (Pleasance), Courtroom Play (Treehouse), Gutted!: A Revenger's Musical (Assembly Theatre), The Play What I Wrote (Birmingham Rep) and an ongoing project performing Scaramouche Jones every decade.

Television work includes The Crown (Netflix), Fresh Meat (Channel 4), Horrible Histories (CBBC), Babylon (Channel 4), We Are Mongrels (BBC Three), Drifters (Channel 4), and he is soon to be seen in the second series of Daddy Issues. If you have children, they will have likely seen his epoch-defining work in Twirlywoos (Cbeebies).

As a comedian, he was nominated Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Fringe for his show Thom Tuck Goes Straight-to-DVD, was adapted for BBC Radio and is now, circuitously, out on DVD. His other solo shows are Thom Tuck Flips Out, The Square Root of Minus One & An August Institution.

Thom is one-third of the acclaimed sketch troupe The Penny Dreadfuls, who have made two series for Radio 4 and ten audio dramas, including adaptations of the Odyssey and Don Quixote. He is also the co-creator and host of The Alternative Comedy Memorial Society.

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