Joey Page: Afterlife (An Idiot Considers a Series of Distractions Before Death)

• Deborah Chu
• 7 August 2019

An uneven show with moments of nonsensical brilliance

Joey Page has entered his thirties. And as such, he now spends a lot of time at John Lewis and owns a tagine. He's also been thinking a lot about death lately, both his own and the audience's, and throughout this hour pulls out his 'Wheel of Death' to help people divine how they meet their end. Will 'Tom Hankz' be involved in some way? How do chinos factor into their ultimate fate?

Indeed, the parenthetical part of his show title is entirely apt, as Page does not weave this existential angst into anything coherent, but instead leaps from one segment to another without much introspection. There's the sense that Page isn't quite sure what kind of comic he wants to be, as he oscillates between observational comedy and sillier, more abstract sketches at a jarring pace.

While in his curmudgeonly persona, Page slides into tired clichés, grousing at length about kids-these-days and their mobile phones. Thus his strength is definitely of the more abstract vein: his verbatim recitation of a conversation between Ariana Grande and a radio DJ, dressed as a Samsung Galaxy, draws the strongest laughs from the audience. And a brief interlude of 'light entertainment' is an unexpectedly brilliant moment of nonsense comedy in an otherwise erratic hour.

Just the Tonic at Marlin's Wynd, until 25 Aug (not 12, 15), 6.45pm, £7 (£5) in advance or donations at the venue.