This review is from the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
High-concept verging on slightly terrifying, comic Jordan Brookes’s latest is show is about the not uncommon subject of getting older. Kind of. In a way. Brookes’s response to the ongoing passing of his thirties is, apparently, to get really into the story of the RMS Titanic, ‘because that’s the sort of thing that people do’.
Perversely, Fontanelle takes its name from a digressionary passage in which Brookes goes off on one about his fascination with the titular soft bit of babies’ heads and how if adults still had it, it would probably get used as a really dumb suicide button. If we’re saying everything has its place here, then I think the inference is the Titanic is what Brookes has gotten into in lieu of having children of his own to focus on. But that may be overthinking it. And the show really is quite a lot about the Titanic.
Coming out wearing what turns out to be a miniature captain’s hat the actual boat, the film and most crucially the relatively obscure stage musical all feature heavily in the material. Brookes apparently made a three hour round trip to see the musical in Southampton and thought it was shit, and therefore decided he'd write his own, which we’re subjected to in increasingly larger, madder doses as the show wears on.
There are things about Fontanelle that it would be unfair to spoil. But easiest to say that it’s remarkable Brookes thinks of this stuff and even more so that he has managed to...
Comedy tribute acts are all the rage these days. First Kenneth Williams, then Eric and Ern. Now it’s the turn of another UK comedy giant, Tommy Cooper, to get the ‘Stars in Their Eyes’ treatment – in this slight but thoroughly likeable show that comes with the approval of the Cooper estate.
At 6' 4", Cooper was a comedy giant in more ways than one. His lumbering frame and granite features (captured in John Claridge’s wonderful black-and-white photo portraits which stare down from the walls of the museum’s tiny performance space) were integral to his act, a perfect counterpoint to the childlike glee of his rapid-fire gags and artfully dysfunctional magic.
With that in mind, first impressions of the new Tommy Cooper – played by baby-faced 26-year-old John Hewer – are not great. However, with a tip of the fez here, a shrug of the shoulders there and, most importantly, excellent comic timing, the legendary Welsh comedian is slowly but surely resurrected, some 30 years after his death. It’s a fine, remarkably faithful performance from the talented Hewer.
So we get ‘spoon jar, jar spoon’, the farcical card tricks, the oddball props and that infectious cackle. At best it’s rather like a Harry Hill show: full of inspired lunacy and deep, belly laughs (in the case of the Cooper diehards in the audience, who know every word to these classic routines, laughter often escapes well before the punchlines). At worst it’s like suffering a string of rotten Christmas cracker jokes from an attention-seeking uncle.
Of course, this avalanche of jokes and magical flubs can be exhausting, and Hewer wisely employs musical interludes to add variety. Unfortunately, despite his obvious skill, pianist Christopher Peters simply performs a pair of lukewarm ditties in the Richard Stilgoe mould, complete with horribly dated Home Counties whimsy. It’s a poor fit and the only real misfire in an otherwise entertaining two hours.
One other thing to note: stick around for the interval, when you’ll be greeted by the awesome sight of a man slowly and solemnly letting the air out of an eight-foot inflatable giraffe, the remnants of some inspired shtick at the close of the first half. If that’s not reason enough to recommend a show, I don’t know what is.