1000 Tiny Birds: 2025 edition

Jordan Brookes - Until The Wheels Come Off (WIP)

Pleasance Courtyard, 2025-08-18

Once again we end the Fringe with a Jordan Brookes show, and it’s another Fringe show that is nominally a WIP but has clearly found its shape quite happily. We’re closer to I’ve Got Nothing than Fontanelle here, high concept musicals begone and concentrated discomfort back on the menu. Nominally focused around him eating a croissant on a train (duh), obviously it spirals. At one point I distract him by checking whether I’ve still got my camera in my bag, which even knowing both him and what he’s doing still throws me. As ever with Brookes, the marvel is similar to Eddie Izzard - how does he manage to take what is, if you focus in, pretty much just observational comedy, and turn it into something so distinct and disconcerting. He just keeps hitting.