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Quick Quiz: Joey Page

By | Published on Thursday 3 August 2017

This August the Edinburgh Festival celebrates its 70th anniversary. To mark the occasion, we have asked a plethora of performers about their personal Fringe experiences. Today TW favourite Joey Page.

TW: What was you first ever experience of the Edinburgh Fringe?
JP: When I was sixteen I was in ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ and I played Shelley Levine, which – if you have seen the film – is Jack Lemon’s part. It was a production with my sixth form and that gave me a taste of being funny on stage, because it is a really funny part and David Mamet is a great writer of dialogue. Also me and three of my best mates snuck off to see Terry Alderton and that’s how I got dragged into this comedy lark. I would love to act in a play again at some point too.

TW: What’s the best thing you’ve ever seen performed at the Fringe?
JP: I think I would have to say Danny Ward’s show ‘Pressure Point’ in 2013. It was a free show and I just wandered in on a whim and it’s literally the only show where I have laughed all the way through for a full 60 minutes. It was relentless, I was struggling to catch my breath.

TW:What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen performed at the Fringe – so bad it was good?
JP: Just quite a lot of exuberant, really posh kids in weird costumes, rolling around the floor doing physical theatre on the Royal Mile while shouting “come to my show” – ie my show that my trust fund has paid for. I guess I am just jealous of how perfect these blue chip kids lives are and how that makes them unbearably confident in their show about a minotaur who has an iPhone 7 and trust issues.

TW: Which of the Fringe shows you performed in do you most fondly remember – and why?
JP: My first one was always special to me, but that was back in 2007 and I have done so many and changed so much since then. It’s a tough question, but I would have to say my last show. Last year my show hit such a such stride, I really found my groove and it was the best reaction I have ever had from audiences asking for photos and such. My aim, a bit like this year, was to just make the silliest show I could make, and I did that.

TW: Name a Fringe performer – past or present – who you’d like to join on stage?
JP: I love so many comics. I would love to work with Phil Ellis, his show was so innovative last year. Also one of my heroes, Harry Hill, or… or… or… Lou Sanders, that would be hilarious. There are loads though.

TW: Other than performing and seeing shows, what is your favourite thing to do in Edinburgh during August?
JP: I have a few traditions that I always keep. One is to invite a lot of my comedian friends over for the first ‘Match Of The Day’ of the season and have a Chinese. Another is to go to Palmyra on Nicolson Street and have a pizza with Matt Winning when we are drunk. We never plan it, it just happens. Like how newly hatched turtles always head for the sea at some point. Matt will buy a huge round of baklava and give it to everyone we know who has turned up drunkenly, by coincidence, to get food on their way home from their drunken adventure.

Joey Page performed ‘Pretty Boy’ at Laughing Horse @ The Counting House at Edinburgh Festival 2017.



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