A confused man on an escalator arrives into a foreign and etheric space. Filled with light and floating in the clouds, and is bustling with thousands of people yet it is peaceful. Our hero is rushed along to take his ticket in the queue upon arrival. Sitting in a waiting area amongst a group of damaged people, he pieces it together that he is dead. Whilst being comforted by another recently dead person in the queue, he starts worrying about the repercussions of his death for his family. As he remembers he forgot to shut the gate, all of sudden his dog shows up at his feet, now dead. He expresses how he thought he would have had more time to get things organised for his wife and kids. A screen arises from the floor where he can pay to watch his funeral take place.

In the most religions there is a conceptual place called ‘purgatory’ or ‘limbo’ where people are assessed as to whether they go to heaven or hell.

The concept is all about the awkwardness and resignation of finding oneself in the halfway-house that is the afterlife. The edit pursued this awkwardness in being slightly off pace and allowing the performance and the gags to sit in that awkward world. Unveiling the next gag where the energy is low and the characters are resigned to their new situation, it allows the audience to enjoy the wry smile that comes with a joke that has such truth.

The cut is clean and cinematic. The humour is all in the space, subtlety, and timing. It allows the audience to empathise with our hero’s shock and bewilderment and really feel the fragility of life and just how fleeting it is. Without seeing his former life, the edit helps the audience paint a picture of his family back home having lost both him and their dog whilst organising the funeral.