'A poetic uppercut on your being'

Jordan Brookes chooses his Perfect Playlists.

As his run in London's Soho Theatre starts this week, Jordan Brookes picks some of his comedy favourites:

Buster Keaton

There’s a smallness and subtlety to Keaton’s performances that manage to communicate so much. Just my favourite thing.

Plus it’s endlessly impressive on a technical level. The scene from Sherlock Jr. where Buster climbs into the movie is awe-inspiring.

Synecdoche New York

This is a proper punch in the gut of a film. A real soul chinning. A poetic uppercut on your being. Brutal and horrible, a horror film in the truest sense.

But, as with a lot of brutal things, some deeply, beautifully funny moments come out of it.

In this scene Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character instructs an actor to walk. He can’t get it right! Silly sausage.

Happiness

As above. Same reasons. So many favourite scenes, real tough choice to pick just one, but I guess I’ll go with the only one I could find on YouTube.

The pre-title scene, in which Joy (Jane Adams) breaks up with her boyfriend (Jon Lovitz) and he doesn’t take it well. Horrible.

'Is there someone else?'

'No it’s just you'

Doug Sklenki

Oh, who’s this fella? Is that me from quite some time ago? Looks like.

I used to make videos of this character based on a guy I went to college with. No one watched them. I made them while living back at my parents’ house in the middle of nowhere after dropping out of uni, where I didn’t leave the house for a year and obsessed over writing jokes.

It’s all I’d think about. It broke my mind and I’ve not recovered fully since. Let that be a lesson to you, late night bedroom-pacers.

I like to revisit the videos sometimes, though.

Now, before I sound like I’m getting high on my own supply, understand that it’s like watching a stranger. Some of the jokes are so complicated that I have no idea what they’re meant to mean. I’ve hidden most of the videos from public view now but here’s the one I understood the most.

The External World

I love David O’Reilly. Makes insanely, hilariously grim animations but also really plays with the computer generated form as an aesthetic in itself. Rather than trying to make everything smooth and try to disguise the fact it’s been made digitally, he embraces the pixels and the dysfunctions.

This is a masterpiece.