Over the Shoulder sat down with Jordan Brookes as he was preparing to launch his new Titanic comedy musical in the West End. We talked about his hopes for the show, as well the inspirations for it and where and how his comedic talent began.
Congratulations on your show Fontanelle which is opening at the Soho Theatre on 13th Feb. the Titanic has been covered from every possible angle, what convinced you there was still something fresh and original to say?
I’m not sure if I am convinced there is anything original to say to be honest!
That was part of what was challenging and fun for me, looking at it and thinking I have no interest in it whatsoever. it’s been joked about, it’s been memed about, it’s been covered in various forms.
That’s how it started. Me thinking maybe there isn’t anything original to say, but then in terms of my stage persona, I’m arrogantly believing that I could find something new to say.
The show is called Fontanelle, what is the significance of that title?
The Fontanelle is the soft part of a baby’s head that eventually hardens and it’s symbolic of vulnerability, fidelity and how we’re so careful around babies. I liked the comparison that when I read about the Titanic, they talked about the fact that it was just so unfortunate that the iceberg hit the ship’s weak spot.
Where the iceberg hit the Titanic, it was the worst possible place it could have hit. I just really liked that comparison, so I just ran with it.
You probably went on a massive deep dive on the Titanic, what is the strangest or most surprising fact you’ve come across?
There’s a couple of things in the show, which I don’t want to spoil in terms of details that interested me the most about the Titanic story.
There is one thing that was interesting and is probably the saddest story.
There was a boy on there who had just turned 16. When you were 16, you were considered an adult and there were these special trousers that you wore to signify it. This boy really wanted to be an adult, so he wore the trousers, but of course what it meant was when it came to get on the lifeboats, he was classified as a man and therefore wasn’t prioritised in getting on the lifeboats.
It’s a sad story, but it’s also funny to me, because when we’re young we are so desperate to be considered an adult and then for this boy the moment he got through the door he got punished for it.
Your comedy has always been introspective and experimental – how does Fontanelle compare to your past work?
It’s probably less introspective in terms of it’s not quite as personal.
There are personal elements to it, and I guess the premise of the show is personal in that it’s about me getting older and pushing 40, or at least seeing 40 on the horizon. Also, thinking, “Okay, who actually am I? What have I done in my life?” Those are personal.
At times in the past I’ve gone deep and tried to spill my guts and there’s less of that in this, I think. It’s a lot sillier this time around but it’s still experimental in the way that it’s done.
You’ve talked before about pushing boundaries in stand up. What new risks are you taking with this show?
I not pushing the audience’s patience, which is probably what I’ve done before. In terms of pushing boundaries, it’s probably doing a musical. The idea of doing that was funny to me because I do love musicals, but I thought I don’t love them enough to do a show about one! But then it felt funny for me to push on and see how far I could take it.
In terms of structure and the way that the musical is presented, I think that’s experimental. It’s quite inventive. There are other people involved in the show who have helped with the music, and there’s a cast, and that’s all-new territory to me. I’ve never collaborated in that environment, and it’s been wonderful doing rehearsals and having people chip in and say, what if I do this?
We’ve built this thing together, it’s such a lovely feeling.
Do you have a favourite musical?
I really love Les Mis, it’s phenomenal and growing up I loved Blood Brothers. I don’t know if I’ve got a favourite contemporary musical although I really enjoyed Wicked and Hamilton.
How do you balance comedy with tragedy when dealing with something as historically weighty as the titanic?
I think the Titanic’s interesting to me because it is so often joked about. It’s like the acceptable face of tragedy. It just has a fascinating status for me in terms of culture and the way that we talk about it and the way that we joke about it.
We are so far removed from this tragic event now that we can joke about the tragic events without it being a taboo or without it being inappropriate because it was so long ago.
It’s interesting to think about the status of other tragic events and how much time must past before jokes can or cannot be made about it.
If someone could see one moment from Fontanelle, what’s the bit you’d want them to see?
There’s a song towards the end. I might be speaking too soon because we’ve not tried it yet, but I’m confident it’s the best thing in the show.
It tries to encapsulate what the show is about, and Jake’s done a phenomenal job on it. It’s just such a wonderful song. That would be the sequence that I would love people to see. The name of the song is called, Nowhere to Go.
How did you get into Stand Up?
I was always interested in it growing up and I loved watching comedy. I actually wanted to be a scriptwriter; I would write lots of scripts when I was a teenager of varying quality!
I got into writing jokes that when I was 19 or 20 were so technical and complicated that in a way, I couldn’t write them now, but I still love thinking in that way. I started thinking about doing stand-up, and then I got encouraged by a few people to give it a go and that was it for me!
Can you remember the first Stand Up you did? Where it was? How did it do down?
I can remember it very vividly. I really wish I couldn’t!
It was in a side room of a pub, and I don’t think half the audience knew that comedy was about to happen in front of them.
There was a big table of people who just had dinner and one by one they left during the night. I was booked to do five minutes but I ended up doing about 15 by mistake. People were leaving during my set, and I was so nervous, but it was fun.
There’s a guy who came up to me afterwards who was also performing that night. A great comic called Phil Cooper, who I didn’t know came up to me and he said, “don’t see that as your first gig, that was so much better than what the audience gave you. You must just do it again.” I was so thankful that he said that to me.
He’s now one of my best friends. It was just so lovely that he took the time to be like, “don’t worry about that, it was great.” I remember it well.
What was the strangest question that you’ve been asked?
The question that I get asked that I just don’t know how to answer is, “How do you come up with material?” Or “where do you get your ideas from?”.
I don’t know. I guess in terms of generating ideas and material there’s no method. I always feel a little bit embarrassed to say I don’t know, because after 13 years I don’t have a way of working that is proven to be successful.
It’s still chaos.
Are you normally a morning writer or an evening writer?
Both, although I think evenings probably more. There’s something nice, feeling the rest of the world has checked out and it’s just you on your own.
I think there’s something about that that seems to generate something in me. I like working late into the evenings.
What projects are you hoping to have in the future and any that you can talk about now?
Nothing specific. There are a few scripts that I have in development, but I don’t know where and when that will happen.
It’s quite quiet in TV industry now so I’m focusing more on continuing to do live work. The plan will be to do a new show next year. It’s dependent on the shelf life of Fontanelle.
If I get to do Fontanelle again after this Soho run, then I’ll focus on that.
Over the Shoulder and audiences are thanking their lucky stars that the “chaos” of Jordan’s fertile comic imagination is still going strong. His exciting new show is going to make us laugh, sing a few songs and maybe rethink our relationship to the concept of tragedy.
They say that comedy is the hardest of all the artistic disciplines, but Jordan Brookes’ talent makes it look effortless and real.