Reviews from the Brighton and Edinburgh Fringe 2009:

Broadway Baby (Edinburgh ‘09)

Max and Iván are a comedy double act from London. They both graduated this year from Royal Holloway University where they met and started writing sketches together. They have been at the Festival for two years, amassing a greater crowd each year and building a name for themselves as comic titans of the Fringe. They have been persistently brilliant and yet still somehow lie an undiscovered talent to wider audiences.

The show consists of a series of sketches written by the pair all based loosely around television shows. This is backed by an AV accompaniment provided by a back-lit projector. The AV element of the show fits perfectly with the sketches. Where one would expect something so tech heavy to dominate the show, in Max and Iván it serves as a perfect backdrop to their TV based sketches. And occasionally delivers the killer punch line required to round off a sketch.

Max and Iván take inspiration from all parts of pop culture. This culminates in a tasty melting pot of what this reviewer can only describe as pure unadulterated awesomeness. These sketches stretch from a brilliant commercial for a Martin Scorsese film based on the Mario brothers to the horrible divorce of Mr. and Mrs. Flobadob. The pair have unique and brilliant ideas coming from every orifice imaginable and this shines right through in their show.

It is not often you walk into a show at the Fringe and leave thinking you have seen the paranormal. But in Max and Iván I have seen the future. You can forget Badiel and Skinner, Lucas and Walliams, even Mitchell and Webb. Max and Iván will change the face of double acts forever. Certainly funnier than many sketch shows already on the small screen, TV stardom awaits these two if they wish to take it.

Three Weeks (Edinburgh ‘09)

The chemistry between these two is amazing. Max and Ivan’s fast-paced sketch show consists of naughty and brilliantly performed parodies that explore laughable aspects of British television and culture. The multi-talented duo bounce off each other like bumper cars as they act, sing and dance their way through a series of varied and energetic sketches. Highlights include their “Credit Crunk” rap, which has the potential to be a chart-topping single, and their hilarious Mario Brothers sketch, which imagines Mario and Luigi living in a Mafia paradise. Their performance is accompanied by visual footage and sound effects that help convey the television formats and stereotypes that dominate our TV screens. The new and much improved Horne and Corden; these guys are going to be popular.

The Stage (Edinburgh ‘09)

Working on the premise that TV programmers believe all their viewers have the attention span of a gnat (might be true), Max Olesker (the one with long hair) and Ivan Gonzalez (the one with the beard) have programmed a set-top box of sketches that flip through the channels non-stop.

No theme is spared. In Toyland, Mr and Mrs Flobberdob fall into a domestic dispute over infidelity, tonight’s Partly Political Broadcast is courtesy of unsavoury Nazis Neville Hatred and Brian, who dismally fail their own citizenship tests, while footballers get florid about soccer in The Beautiful Game culture show which goes back to back with Art of the Day, where artist Lucien Freud gormlessly reels off footballer cliches about his latest moves in painting. Music gets a look-in with the ‘Credit Crunk’ rap, as do video games with Super Mario and sibling Luigi in the gritty crime drama 16 Bit Streets.

Punctuating the live action are a flurry of ads, sketches and public announcements via videos and lo-tech animations projected behind the duo. Memorable are the commercials for spurious loans and the Russian Technologycoat, and the Spy Sport cloud race.

It may all seem a tad obvious, but Max and Ivan effortlessly find a different angle on their targets. And don’t let the cuddly delivery fool you – this can be close to the bone, as proved by the Chuckle Brother (‘singular’) and Eaters Anonymous (for models who inadvertently eat) episodes. With panto-like skill, the pair guide the hard stuff safely over the heads of any audience members who happen to be minors, making this one of the best all-round value shows of the festival.

Chortle (Brighton ‘09)

If you want a format that can embrace just about any sketch you can think of, chose a TV parody. There’s nothing that you can’t frame as a fictional programme, and slot in next to easy spoofs of readily derided adverts and existing broadcast output.

Max Olesker and Ivan Gonzalez’s show has its peaks and troughs, taking obvious targets alongside more inventive ideas, but you can’t deny it’s all done with an impressive style. The black-and-white, marker-pen animation by Russell Sassoon that accompany the skits lends the hour a distinctive visual feel, and the pair are such talented and enthusiastic performers that they can’t help put raise the audience’s spirits. Even in the sparsely-attended show Chortle saw, the consummately professional duo gave it their all.
The range of instant characters they bring to life is impressive, and not only are they versatile with a useful range of accents and emotions, they can hold a tune, too – giving a spirited rap about the ‘credit crunk’, posing as a dodgy mariachi duo, or belting out a musical theatre-style showstopper about two Nuts-reading lads planning a bawdy getaway.

We can probably live without further piss-takes of pretentious perfume ads or chaste costume dramas, while their sneer at Horne and Corden, though well-deserved, is as obvious as the original… though thankfully a lot shorter.
But there are also more impressive skits: The Mario Brothers made into a grittily overwrought, New York drama, the spoof of those tackily hyperactive late-night phone-in quizzes, or the painful tedium of the latest Sky Sports acquisition that’s reminiscent of the staring contest that was once a running gag on Big Train are all executed with aplomb.

The sharply produced show is well paced, too, with brisk one-liners interspersed with more complex pieces, so the time just flies by in the company of these two skilled entertainers.