Tom Neenan's girlfriend Hannah has gone missing, leaving him with just one profound, and profoundly confusing, final text - 'It's Always Infinity'. He, as any good writer would, has taken this traumatic experience as an opportunity to write a thought provoking and hopefully award-winning devised piece telling his story. Sorry... telling Hannah's story.
The Old Fire Station wasn't packed but after a sharp and gag-heavy opening third, those in attendance were more than willing to buy in to Neenan's new persona. The onslaught of jokes was aided by the show's main narrative device - the projection of Neenan's phone onto the screen behind him, which over the course of the hour provided both immediate sight and sound gags, and some entirely worth-it slow burners. As the show progressed, it was the odder tangents that won the best responses; an angry social-media stalking, Skyfall DVD-related episode, and an impression of Hannah's best friend Abigail which resembled (intentionally I hope) Reeves and Mortimer's The Stotts, were enough to get an initially timid audience howling with laughter.
A lone criticism would be that there were moments where I was unsure how far we were meant to suspend our disbelief - sometimes a joke wouldn't quite land and you weren't sure which Tom you were withholding laughter from. Though, given that the persona adopted is an inherently unfunny and un-self-aware man, Neenan was able to have his cake and eat it and used any gags that fell flat to his advantage, making his character appear even more desperate for approval.
It's Always Infinity is a damning satire of your best mate's 'woke' boyfriend who she inexplicably continues to see against your better judgement - a man who is very proud to call himself a male feminist despite his mansplaining habit and obvious contempt for women. What made the hour especially successful is that it teeters on the edge of darkness; Neenan's self-obsessed and dangerously entitled on-stage persona seems to be a couple of rejections away from doing something awful. In a show that seemed to actively avoid subtlety at times, it was nuanced in its exploration of this kind of masculinity - in a situation true to reality, his transition from simpering nice-guy to borderline sociopath was seamless and almost went unnoticed.