Review of the innovative comedian's latest show
For a man forever playing with the form of stand-up, Jordan Brookes is relatively conventional with his latest offering. Yet within the format of one-man-and-a-mic comedy, he chews over some knotty existential concepts, with more than enough theatrical flourishes and displays of his intense, malleable physicality to mix things up.
The bedrock here is the performance we all put on whenever we’re being watched. Even the simple act of eating a croissant on a train becomes a show when he knows his neighbour can see him.
And if that single observer makes Brookes anxious, imagine the effect of scores of eyes bearing down on him in a theatre. He foments a constant tension between himself and his audience, never wanting us to be entirely relaxed, yet is hyper-sensitive to how we are receiving his work.
For a comedian so fearless and provocative, Brookes’s ego is fragile. Any reticence from the crowd is like a knife to his soul, given how much he’s pouring into his show. It means he’s frequently interrogating the crowd, whatever the risk to his momentum. That we are uncertain whether such distractions are part of the sho, is itself part of a show that perpetually operates on a meta level.
It’s notable that on grilling a couple of punters about why they seem subdued, Brookes is told that he embarrassed them in previous shows. Reap what you sow…
Intriguingly, Brookes doesn’t even need another person to feel surveilled. He lives his life almost in the third person, knowing that he’s the observer of all he does, which only serves to elevates his anxiety.
While he may rage against an unseen, undefined ‘Them’ who are always seeking to get the better of him, at other times, the comic can be surprisingly sanguine about the vagaries of fate, shrugging off misadventure.
Alongside these existential musings, Brookes offers sharp, sardonic routines about, for example, pick-up artists, how to steal a surreptitious glance at a stranger or the superhuman strength mothers are said to be capable of if their babies are in peril. In that vein, Brookes offers an eccentric hypothetical about him failing to be the hero of the hour.
Then there’s that creepy, compellingly disconcerting primal physicality, as he contorts his body into something you might expect to find in a Body Worlds exhibition as he wrestles with whatever turmoil – probably self-inflicted – is at hand. It makes explicit the notion that we are here to be enthralled by the grotesque, corporeal or psychological, like some modern freak show.
Brookes always likes to challenge his audience, but the recompense is that the laughs he gets come as part of a more involved, nourishing experience than you could ever get from a journeyman observational comedian. As ever, he rewards investment in his unique point of view.
• Jordan Brookes is on tour until the end of November. Jordan Brookes tour dates
Published: 9 Oct 2026
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