Review: Max & Ivan: Commitment

A feel-good show about friendship

★★★★
comedy review (edinburgh) | Read in About 2 minutes
32838 large
Max & Ivan
Photo by Matt Crockett
Published 13 Aug 2019

With Max & Ivan's camraderie you hope that when they clock off and go home they spend the evening still together, chatting like Morecombe and Wise in their pyjamas or going through separate front doors into the same house, as The Beatles do in Help!. There's a traditional double act feel to Commitment, more so than in their previous shows, which puts them on a similar level to Vic & Bob. It suits a show all about organising the parties that go with landmark events—big birthdays and stag nights—which can demonstrate how well you know a person, the lengths you will go to for them.

We don't quite start there though. As in Tristam Shandy, we go back before this double act were conceived, into their separate childhoods. A scrapbook of memories from photographs, school projects and home videos are projected behind them. 

Their stories are told with superior wordplay and equations, and it leaves you unsure how much, or if, the biographical facts displayed are rooted in any truth at all. It may have all been sacrificed and embellished for the story in the name of pure fun – yet even with a full party and dreams-come-true atmosphere, Commitment still makes you think about, and value, long friendships.