Skip to main content

Max and Ivan Are... Con Artists

FAVOURITES          PLAY         
   
     'Crying with laughter' doesn't quite cover it. If I smoked, I would have needed a cigarette, but instead settled for a walk, a twix and bashing out a review. Like the second album, the second Fringe show is a difficult thing to pull off, but somehow from Holmes and Watson last year to the crack team of Con Artists they portray this year, Max and Ivan have kept the standard breathtakingly high with a show so impeccable it's difficult to know exactly where to start.
     Having developed a talent for moulding their two faces into a crowd of characters, Max and Ivan fly full-throttle into their double-act, with not two but eight main characters, each distinguished by accent, pose, expression and relationship to one another, so that a six-way hotel phonecall is pulled off astonishingly well with a certain sweaty concentration. Even this early in the run the show is flawless, snapping forwards and backwards through time with the smoothest tech-work this side of the Royal Mile. It's a shame the venue is small, but a pleasure to be in such an intimate space witht he two tireless comedians, especially when a lothario Argentinian picks on whoever happens to be in his eye-line in the front row.
     It's not good comedy etiquette to reveal the details of a show, so all I can do is encourage you to hunt down a ticket however you can. And bring some tissues.

EDIT: That six-way phonecall scene? Where the pair jump up and down into and out of different characters with only a couple of chairs to support them?
           One chair broke. Still brilliant.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Writing CV

Let's talk:   jenni.ajderian@gmail.com Mild-mannered professional Linguist by day, crime-fighting writer and editor by night. Currently protecting the mean streets of Dublin from bad content. "She's one of the good ones" -  FringePig "Best. Review. Ever." -  @ObjectiveTalent "This interview has won #edfringe" -  @FredRAlexander "I think this is the nicest review I've ever received." -  @DouglasSits "Do you give lessons? Jus askin..." -  @RockyFlintstone FedEx Digital Infinite Beta blog  - 2017 I worked with FedEx Digital as a Technical Copywriter (more info on my  LinkedIn Profile ) and produced sassy content for their Infinite Beta blog. The tone here is informal and personable, the aim being to show some personality and attract future team members to the company. How to explain your job title Automated content checkers   Technology predictions for 2018  (I wasn't too far off) 3di Technical Commu...

Populaire - film review

     In the 50s, having a job as a secretary may have been considered modern, or even empowering, but mostly, as Rose Pamphyle (Déborah Francois) says in her job interview, it's the chance to work for an important man. Seen in this light, the rise and fall of a Speed-Typing champion is just as much to do with a woman's personal victory as it is to do with her boss' encouragement and coaching, as well as the freedom he allows her to have.      In the film, and in life, the Speed-Typing Championship probably stemmed from a cigar-fuelled "I bet my secretary types faster than yours" argument, and the exclusively female competitors inhabit a space somewhere between real sportsman(woman?)ship and simply being allowed to play. The rocky ground of post-war sexual power-play is tested with bright colours and the happy clack-clack of a typewriter, and leads us somewhere a little more patronising than first-time director Regis Roinsard may have been hoping for. ...

Howling Moon

Fairytales grow up. They grow deeper, darker and stronger. Our heroine is no longer a scared little girl but a stoic woman who insists she is neither lost nor tired. Maggie, part realist, part sleeping child, is woken by a spellbinding fox, surrounded by weeping trees and mocked by a trio of birds. A dreamlike world is created under Soco's flaky ceiling by an earnest cast who take the idea of physical theatre and use it tastefully, and not so much that it should scare away fans of traditional theatre. Seated on camping chairs, we are taken through the forest and into the sky, through suffering and away from the howls of the wolf. Strange and beautiful, touching and magical. **** Flyaway Theatre, C Soco, 3 – 29 Aug (not 15, 22), 2:00pm (3:15pm), £6.50 - £9.50 [originally written for ThreeWeeks magazine]