The stand-up who sat down

Andrew Maxwell has been working hard in recent years to develop his comedy, and recently discovered his best prop yet - a chair, he tells Brian Boyd

Dublin comic Andrew Maxwell has played shows in China and Africa, but it was another atypical show at a Swiss ski resort last year that had the most impact on his career. "I was doing the après ski entertainment and I had been out snowboarding all day and my legs were hanging off me," he says. "I did something I've never done before as a performer. I asked for a chair and sat down for the whole gig.

"Everything suddenly changed. Because I was sitting down, the material was different, the presentation was different - I wasn't moving around the stage like I usually do and I found I had to work harder on the material because of this. I had to reframe everything in a storytelling mode."

He was so taken by how the simple act of sitting down changed the whole tone of his performance that he decided to sit down for all of his Edinburgh Fringe run this year. "I know it sounds really silly but in a weird way it's made me a better comic," he says. "The only downside is that, with my accent, I now get a lot of 'new Dave Allen' references and that's a very big name to throw onto my young shoulders."

His sit-down show, called Waxin', impressed so much that he was nominated for this year's if. comedy award (formerly the Perrier) - last Saturday, he narrowly missed out on the overall award, which went to the Australian comic Brendon Burns. The nomination came as a genuine surprise to the 33-year-old, who is originally from Kilbarrack in Dublin but now based in London.

"I've had sold-out runs and really good reviews for the past few years here, so I really thought I had gone into that strange area where some people think that you actually don't need a nomination because of your proven track record and that it should go to an up-and-coming act instead." Maxwell is speaking the day after his nomination at the press launch in Edinburgh of this year's nominees. In his hands is a model copy of the overall prize, which he gets to keep. There does seem to be genuine pleasure among his comedy colleagues that he got the nod this year, more so for the fact that he first played the Edinburgh Fringe as far back as 1995. "I suppose, in that sense, I've earned this," he says, playfully caressing his model award.

What is most remarkable about his show this year is that it's just a series of unrelated stories. There is no "message", no moral edict. In a year where seemingly every second comic feels the imperative to crowbar a "message" (usually of the trite and feel-good nature) into their show, Maxwell's has a distinctly old school and yes, Dave Allen feel about it. But then again, he is Irish, he sits on a chair and he talks about the ridiculous nature of religious beliefs.

Although he has been based in London since 1994, the three stories that make up his show are all based on true incidents that happened to him in Ireland in the last 12 months. He is back in Dublin a lot anyway - he regularly flies in to appear on RTÉ2's show The Panel. "I spent four of the last 12 months in Ireland," he says. "That's the most time I've ever spent there since I left as a teenager."

THE FIRST STORY in his show is how he got away with calling Bertie Ahern a "motherf**ker" on The Panel just before this year's election. "A lot of the stuff I do on The Panel I know will be edited out afterwards for either legal reasons or it's just vulgar abuse," he says. "But because of these weird broadcasting rules that apply for the three weeks before a general election, the term I used was left in - apparently it was considered 'political comment'. I was shocked it went out and apparently some people were heckling Bertie with the term while he was out canvassing. As it turned out, I found myself drinking in Bertie's local in Drumcondra on a Saturday night just before the election. All my friends were saying to me: 'If Bertie comes in, there's going to be real trouble if he sees the guy who called him a "motherf**ker" on RTÉ." but I knew there was no way Bertie would be in the pub so close to the election - he'd be out canvassing."

Maxwell underestimated the Taoiseach's fondness for the odd pint of Bass and Bertie did show up in the pub that night. The punchline to the story is a bit of a let down - but Maxwell does build it up very well.

"The second story is about the huge self-regard of Cork people," he says. "And that came directly from a Cork taxi driver who picked me up at Cork airport earlier this year. We were chatting away and I asked him how things were going and he said 'I'm in heaven, sure wouldn't you be in heaven if you were paid to drive through this beautiful and amazing city every day'. The story goes from there and there's a line in it about how at one point I ask him what the population of Cork city is and he says 'I don't know exactly - but we do have three cinemas'."

The final story is about an all-night drinking session with Sinn Féin community activists in a republican bar in west Belfast. The activists know him from his work on The Panel and want him to perform at a Republican event in the city. Maxwell raises the question of whether the gig will have anything to do with the IRA. When the activists reply that it's totally false that all members of Sinn Féin are in the IRA, Maxwell says: "Yes, but isn't everyone who is in the IRA also in Sinn Féin?"

The joy of the show is that for all his outward "lad comic" persona, Maxwell really delves deep into some cutting commentary about Islamic fundamentalism. "When the London bombs happened on 7/7, it was all Muslim this and Muslim that," he says. "But this has nothing to do with Muslims, it's to do with a psychopathic billionaire who's waging a despotic global war against working-class people. I go into these areas because they're important to me and because of the state of the world we live in. I don't do political comedy per se because it can turn into a lecture and basically I'm a clown. You shouldn't be listening to political analysis from a clown."

ÃS A PROTESTANT growing up in a predominantly Catholic community, Maxwell says he took to comedy because of his feelings of being different. "It's the classic outsider thing of not belonging," he says. "And there also was the plain and simple fact that I was the class clown at school."

Like most Dublin comics, he did his first few gigs in the city's famed Comedy Cellar venue. "I remember meeting Barry Murphy and Ardal O'Hanlon and Dermot Carmody and they were all in their late 20s and had been to university and I was a 17-year-old brat wearing hoodies all the time. They were incredibly supportive of me and when I moved to London I used to stay in Irish comics' flats in the early days."

A big ally in London was his friend Ed Byrne who had "broken through" at this stage and was a font of wisdom for the young Maxwell. Ed Byrne's brother, Paul, directed Maxwell's show this year. Another early and vocal supporter was Jimmy Carr.

"It has been at times very frustrating over the last 10 years," he says. "Other comics said they found me funny but I just didn't feel I was really going anywhere." He thinks that adapting his style over the years and moving somewhat away from his "laddish" persona has facilitated his progression. Beneath his cheeky chappie image, he's a ferociously intelligent individual, even if at times he seems to be parroting typical laddish subject matter in his routines.

"I'll be the first to admit that working on The Panel has been a big boost for my career," he says. "I find that when I go outside Dublin now, I get recognised a lot and despite what people may think of the programme, it has a huge reach. I describe The Panel in my show to British audiences as a type of Irish version of Have I Got News For You, but without the mad Anglo-Saxon desire for a quiz."

Despite losing out on the if. comedy award, he will take a lot from this year's Edinburgh. "Deep down, I'm a born entertainer," he says. "I joke in the show that I will still be doing this years after people have lost interest in me. And I'm deadly serious about this. Years from now, I'll be working as a comic on cruise liners. And that's something I'm actually looking forward to doing."

Andrew Maxwell plays Vicar Street, Dublin on Oct 18 and 19. His DVD, Live in Dublin, is released in early November