Jordan Brookes: Fontanelle Review

February 18, 2025

Jordan Brookes: Fontanelle Review

13th February – 1st March 2025

What’s funny about the Titanic, the luxury liner that sank on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York with the loss of more than 1500 lives in 1912?

Not much for the passengers who died, the captain and crew, the ship’s orchestra that played as the liner, holed by an iceberg, slipped below the icy North Atlantic waves making this one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in history.

Not funny? Too soon? But hey, this is Soho. This is comedy fit for Soho Theatre where even a disaster can be salvaged in the interests of making people laugh.

“He is at once outrageous and charming, sometimes sentimental and vulnerable, also brutal in his observations”

And Jordan Brookes manages to do just that with his dark and unpredictable wit that takes a pop at unresolved masculinity, unravels the absurdity of men of a certain age, pondering the meaning of life and feminism. He is at once outrageous and charming, sometimes sentimental and vulnerable, also brutal in his observations.

He uses a strong baritone to launch into snippets of musical theatre. But this is a parody of a musical – don’t expect any more than the odd sea shanty as Brookes displays a decent pair of naked legs for his song and dance routine. Special guests Eddy Hare, Rosalie Minnitt, Isobel Rogers and Lami Olopade anchor Brookes and keep him on course. (Music and Lyrics by Jake Roche; Choreography Jessica Simmons).

Brooke’s Titanic-inspired show enjoyed a sell-out season at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The 38 year old self-deprecating performer questions why we seem infatuated with the commodification of tragedy. He treads a narrow plank around what can and cannot be satirised.

The verdicts seems to be a thumbs up if the tragedy happened a century ago. ‘Please can we make jokes about it and dead people if they were wearing ridiculous hats?’ he asks. So no jokes about 9/11 unless victims wore bowler hats and boas.

The audience was split over that maritime tradition of ‘women and children first’ when a passengers abandon the ship for lifeboats. He scolds women: ‘You want equality until it’s time to take the bins out and dying in the Atlantic.’

Writer and performer Jordan Brookes uses Titanic to confront the relentless commercialisation of crises, saying: ‘The world is obsessed with turning everything into entertainment, finding stories to tell in a feverish desire to ensure every moment in human history has been thrown onto the bonfire of spectacle.

‘I’ve taken a different approach, and turned back towards one of the original money-maker tragedies in the biz the Titanic. Convinced there’s something previously undiscovered, I’ve gone on an obsessive deep dive to prove there’s life in the old ship yet, and by extension, me.

‘Can I find something original to say about the most well-worn topic of all time? Or will I have to make something up?’

SOHO THEATRE, celebrated as a vibrant producer for new theatre, comedy and cabaret with a queer, punk, counter-culture flavour, is an ideal location for Jordan Brookes. And its busy, buzzing bar attracts lively audiences which, on day four of the run, counted comedians Ruby Wax and Rosie Jones.

Jones’ verdict: ‘He’s amazing, creative and engaging. He’s doing what nobody else does,’ she told me.