Max and Ivan: Unstoppable

Fringe veterans Max and Ivan bring their show Unstoppable to The Warren for this year’s Brighton Fringe. With wrestling, pots of cream and plenty of character comedy it loosely tells the tale of how the double act met pursuing their childhood hobbies. Max and Ivan conjure up plenty of strange personas and employ all of their vocal talents to morph into RAF taskmasters, a camp a capella duo and various members of their own exotic families.

These two have very funny bones and are incredibly easy with an audience

These two have very funny bones and are incredibly easy with an audience, making plenty of adlibbed jokes around the already funny script. They have a natural rapport on stage with their traditional straight man/funny man dynamic and comedy timing many could only dream of. When an audience member picked for a particularly physical on stage appearance turned out to be twice Ivan's size they were quick to find the funny side.

The performance, although very amusing, was unfortunately under-rehearsed to the point that the majority of the show was read from scripts. Thanks to the natural confidence and ability of the duo, this often added a joke or two but occasionally meant that the flow of the performance was lost. Coupled with this, some of their sketches fell below the comedy standard set at the start of the performance and struggled to get the audience going.

It is completely understandable that these types of shows need to have a scratch night or two to find their feet but it seems to me that Brighton Fringe audiences are paying for a finished product and this let the show down. The audience, myself included, found the performance entertaining and very funny for the vast majority but it will need some fine tuning to get it up to the standard of a nicely polished Fringe comedy.