If you have had, have, or plan to have children, if you’re still tossing up whether or not to, or even if you’ve decided you definitely won’t, Turning Another Page has something for you.

Lucy Edwards and Gabriel Page have a Page boy. He’s two. And now, in the hope the box-office will at least cover the cost of babysitters, they are sharing their experience, and the insights and wisdom gleaned thereby, as part of the Comedy Festival. As with much of the Bats Theatre fare, it’s a welcome change of style and pace from solo stand-up (which has its place, don’t get me wrong: stand-up comedians are the court jesters of the modern age and woe-betide a realm that does not value them).

A sofa is their set and they use hand-held mics to chat with us, which are not exactly necessary in such an intimate space. I can’t help but wonder how it would be if the game was they’d snuck out to visit us somewhere and treated us as friends they were reconnecting with.

There’s a slight sense of remembering their pre-rehearsed script which I’m sure will dissolve as the season progresses. Meanwhile Baby Brain Syndrome offers the perfect excuse and, far from causing embarrassment, even adds value.

Getting chores done in the process of the show is a clever device which could be developed further.

Decision-making and the long-term implications, sleep-deprivation, division of labour (post-natal, that is), just getting to the shower, prioritising, multi-tasking, tuning in to the latest trends, how to cope with ‘celebrity’ and compulsive advice-givers, not to mention the inevitable traumas and crises, and what they discover about themselves by being new parents, all get a good airing.

There is no attempt to romanticise the experience or paint themselves as ideal parents and partners. Quite the opposite, which makes for insightful comedy. Turning Another Page is a relatively gentle but astutely accurate domestic variation on the truism that truth + pain = comedy.

Gabriel sings and excellent song that sums it all up and concludes “that’s love”. And the fact they have made and presented this show together proves it. Those who have travelled that road will value the company; those who have not will value the chance to glimpse the travelogue.

Even if all it does is make you take less for granted what you own parents went through to give you your life, it will be 50 minutes well spent.

And would they do it again? You be the judge. Meanwhile it does them – and us – good to get out of the house. 

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