After half a dozen shows together, Max Olesker and Ivan Gonzalez are presenting the origin story of their friendship. It’s told, as were its predecessors (including the award-nominated Edinburgh fringe show turned recent Channel 4 short The Reunion), in the form of a multi-character, two-person, freewheeling comic play. The teen twosome meet while attending scout camp and wrestling school and their dorky bromance is spliced with sketches and nonsense as the pair’s present-day relationship skates close to the rocks.
It’s looser than their earlier shows: the plotting less involved, the role-swapping not as frenetic. And Gonzalez is more conspicuously the outré clown, particularly in the skits that interrupt the backstory. There’s none of The Reunion’s pathos, but plenty rambunctious silliness, as crazed scout leaders haunt the woods with crossbows, folk songs combine with blueprints for rustic condoms, and a running joke puns groansomely on bread products.
In its celebration of camaraderie, there’s a dash of Pappy’s unforgettable Last Show Ever (Pappy’s kingpin Tom Parry directs) and of Kieran Hodgson’s autobiographical coming-of-age comedy. Tonight’s performance could have been tighter, and not all the characters make a vivid impression. But there’s a lot to enjoy, most notably the daft cutaway to Gonzalez’s Aunt Mary, inept greetings card poetaster – a lovely sketch, adroitly outpacing our expectations of the ways Mary will screw up the poetry.
Roses are red, violets are blue. I savoured this show, and you might too.
- At Soho theatre, London, until 4 March. Box office: 020-7478 0100.
