Interview: Jordan Brookes

Acclaimed comedian Jordan Brookes brings his new show Body of Work to the Wardrobe Theatre on Friday, Feb 10, as part of Chuckle Busters’ excellent stand-up strand at the Wardrobe. The premise for Body of Work goes like this:

“In August 2015 Jordan’s Nanna, Gwendoline Martha Brookes, passed away. She was 95. This show is a genuine attempt to pay tribute to her. That can’t be the whole thing, can it? I thought Jordan Brookes did absurdist stuff? Like, bits that go on for ages and horrible physical stuff, daft faces, etc? Is he just going to talk about his Nan for an hour? Surely not.”

“Wildly entertaining stand-up that demolishes the conventions of comedy” The Guardian

Here’s Jordan to tell us more.

“Wildly entertaining stand-up that demolishes the conventions of comedy.” Fair assessment? Do you set out to push the boundaries of comedy, or are you just performing in the style that feels most natural for you
Yeah, it’s definitely the latter. I’m not setting out to do anything groundbreaking. It would be terrible if that was my guiding feeling, like waking up and being like, “what conventions can I turn to ash today?” It might sound disingenuous, but I’m honestly just trying to be funny in the way that would make me laugh if I was watching it. I’m trying to entertain the reflection of myself I see in other people’s often panicked eyes.

The show is an attempt to pay tribute to your Nanna. How much of it is just that, and how much goes off in different directions…?
It is no way a tribute, really. Well, it kind of is, in the sense that I’m trying to pay tribute to what I think is a more honest experience of a person’s relationship with an ‘other’, in all its murky and unsettling awfulness.

So, the show does indeed go off in a whole load of directions. Does that reflect how your mind works?
I think it’s a reflection of how everyone’s mind works. Doing a show that goes all over the place and constantly throws up often alarming surprises is where the majority of us are at in terms of our day-to-day experience.

You seem like someone whose personality, physicality, nervous energy, linguistic facility, all seem made for stand-up. How early on did stand-up come through for you as what you wanted to do?
It took years to get myself in a place where I thought I could perform. I used to write scripts and little short stories but the idea of doing live performance was a pretty toxic prospect until my mid-twenties, when my best friend Charlie Webster (also a comedian) encouraged me to give it a go. It went terribly, obviously.

What might you be doing if you weren’t doing this, do you think?
Something way less egotistical and self-involved. I can’t wait until I see this whole thing for the narcissistic cesspit it is and go do something else instead, something that helps people, that contributes something valuable to society. What a dream that would be.

There are some nice tinges of surrealism and absurdism in your comedy.. Any particular influences that have fed into it?
I’m inspired by everything around me! The everyday is endlessly inspirational, you just have to open your eyes to it! Flowers in a breeze. A child’s laugh. Church on a Sunday. A dog bounding towards a ball as if its life depended on it. Crumbs on a plate like a constellation of messiness. Those weird hairs on my left nipple. That strange taste in my mouth that I can’t get rid of. The nagging feeling that nothing I do matters. The many, many hours I spend beneath a duvet trying to pretend like I’ve died. Pain. So much pain. Suffering and pain. Suffering and pain.

Jordan Brookes performs at the Wardrobe Theatre on Friday, Feb 10 in a Chuckle Busters double-header with Mat Ewins. For more info, visit thewardrobetheatre.com/livetheatre/mat-ewins-jordan-brookes