August 5, 2025 
One4Review
In a space that can only be described as a COVID cupboard — tight, boiling, and vaguely post-apocalyptic — Shannon Brooke turns up the heat for all the right reasons.An Aussie with German heritage now living in Edinburgh, Brooke is a fresh new voice on the Fringe, and this debut hour is a proper surprise package. You walk in expecting nothing and leave genuinely impressed.What sets her apart? Real control. She’s got a natural presence, a killer instinct for timing, and some of the sharpest crowd work I’ve seen this year. She handles the room like she’s been gigging for a decade — off-the-cuff barbs, callbacks on the fly, and never once losing pace. This is exactly what a Fringe show should feel like: relaxed, reactive, and razor smart.And the material? Joyfully strange, unexpectedly layered, and forensically written. She flips expectations from the jump — rebelling against her pro-drug parents (yes, really), profiling an ex-boyfriend whose obsessive commitment to fitness and REM sleep reads like a true crime podcast, and delivering the most hilariously inappropriate story about working with mental health kids you’ll hear this month. That last bit? My sketch highlight of the Fringe so far.Tonally, she walks a tightrope — absurd, honest, dark, heartfelt — and never loses her balance. There’s a lot going on here, but it’s all anchored by Brooke’s voice: offbeat, warm, a little unhinged, but always engaging.By the end, the crowd is entirely in her corner. This is exactly what the Free Fringe should be about — giving space to emerging acts with something real to say and a genuinely fresh way of saying it.A Horseless Rodeo is just the beginning. Shannon Brooke is one to keep an eye on. Click Here For Review