Mike Stephenson reviews the latest shows from energetic sketch duo Max & Ivan and 2010 Musical Comedy Awards finalist Jay Foreman.
Two full length Edinburgh shows for the price of one, and all from the comfort of your own latitude. Let's get cracking.
Max and Ivan are rapidly becoming monsters of sketch comedy. As comperes and linchpins of the Grand Union's monthly Roffle Club, they casually master the effect of being super high octane in-your-face but not in the least bit scary or daunting with it.
They can always fall with ease into the same collective skin, each with his own partitioned idiosyncrasies. Max tends to be the intense, mouth-foaming, piercing-eyed antagonist. His American conspiracy nut character “The Enlightenment Hawk” is a thing of beauty, free of genre, at once satirical on the topic of surrealism and surreal on the topic of satire. Ivan is usually the cuddly, saucy one. Terry Peterson, his pastiche of a washed-up and outdated comedian is indeed funnier than your average comedian, yet bears an acute air of truth that's more provocative than your average straight actor.
Separately, they are as just commanding as each other in slightly opposing ways, but together they are far greater than the sum of their parts. Not content with being superbly oiled dialogue mashers and awesome singers, their upper class beef-based hip hop joint reveals them to be great rappers, and the tightest synchronised dancers you'll see this side of a chorus line. They have an unquestionably bright future as they continue to go from strength to strength in performative control as well as hilarious outrage (Max really pulls out all the stops. That elusive innuendo is as far as I'll go in spoiling it for you).
Jay Foreman is their perfect compliment, equal parts po-faced comedian and finger-licking folk singer-songwriter, and clearly able to succeed in either role. The show itself is a detailed composition drawing from both areas. Some songs barely contain any humour, save for an ungraspably whimsical and unexpected sense of ennui, while others are soaked with laughter (like his impromptu play performed with a kidnapped audience member) or just bafflingly busy and densely packed with fiddly arpeggios and clever wordsmithery (If I ever get “Stealing Food” out of my head it'll be too soon.)
He paints a sparse, snowy landscape that from a distance is meditative in its emptiness. But look closely and there are happy little gremlins poking out from the bushes and cackling gleefully at the dissonance. An inspiring musician and an honest soul, the perfect fellow to have round a camp fire on a frosty night. Every home should have one.
Intuitively, you'd expect the two acts to be swapped over in the running order, but this works out wonderfully. Max and Ivan are like a face full of happy pills and a go on a bouncy castle. Jay Foreman is like a couple of valium and a cool highball to smooth the night over and send you to bed with sweet but disturbing dreams. Not that I would recommend such things (perish the thought).
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