Review: JORDAN BROOKES - FONTANELLE, Soho Theatre

Photo credit: Jennifer Forward Hayter

There is no feeling more alienating in a theatre than feeling left out of the joke. Edinburgh Award-winning comedian Jordan Brookes’ Fontanelle has been hailed by The Guardian as one of the ‘Top 3 Comedy Shows of 2024’, and by Time Out as a ‘Top Comedy Show to See in February’ but this production regrettably falls far short of those expectations.

Evidently, this show has attracted a loyal following from Brookes’ Edinburgh run, as a handful of audience members suggested by practically coughing up a lung before a word was spoken on stage. For those new to the show, and indeed new to Brookes’ blunt style, this production took a bit longer to settle into.

Fontanelle explores the commercialisation of tragedy through the example of the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic and its absorption into pop culture. Brookes’ show also uses this framework to explore questions around masculinity, deconstructing heroism, ‘women and children first’, and anal play in a bizarre whiplash of observational stand-up and snippets of musical theatre interruptions.

Jordan Brookes’ Fontanelle trips over its own feet at the top of the show, with a deliberate false-start that isn’t carried through with enough confidence to make it seem deliberate. This marks the tone for the rest of the show which needs its gotchas, double takes and switchbacks polished in order for the jokes to firmly land.

The themes and ideas that drive the show knit together but the work as a whole is patchy. Jordan Brookes is a charismatic and effortlessly funny comedian, and shines when he is alone on stage, just him and the audience, where it is evident he is most comfortable.

The show gradually gathers pace and settles into itself, moving away from jagged bits that seem like odds and ends from an existing set, but a show clocking in at just over an hour simply doesn’t have the space to accommodate this. Brookes lampshades the issues in the show - the structural chaos, the scattergun agenda of topics - but the real issue in Fontanelle is a lack of tight direction.

There is a roughness to the show that perhaps better befits a Fringe festival venue rather than the dwarfing capacity of Soho Theatre’s main house.

Jordan Brookes’ Fontanelle is a unique and witty concept, a clever construction, albeit a bit wobbly in places.

** Two stars

Reviewed by: Livvy Perrett

Jordan Brookes: Fontanelle plays at London’s Soho Theatre until 1 March, with further info here.