From the Aussie jungle to the W ex ford stage
CATHY LEE TALKS TO COMEDIAN ANDREW MAXWELL AS HE BEGINS HIS NEW IRISH TOUR ‘REALITY’, COMING TO WEXFORD NEXT MONTH
COMEDIAN ANDREW MAXWELL has come a long way since he decided to follow in the footsteps of Ardal O’Hanlon and other Irish funny men during his early 20s and head off to follow his passion for stand up comedy to the UK, which then brought him to the US, Australia and back again to the UK and Ireland.
Now, the father of three is based in Kent in the UK and is undertaking his latest UK and Irish tour ‘Reality’, which comes to Wexford town and Gorey next month.
He does this tour every two years, and it is something he has a great fondness for.
‘It’s joyful experience, I don’t get much heckling in Ireland.
‘I’m in and out of Ireland all the time seeing friends and family, but the tour gives me a chance to get around parts of the country that are not in my private life.
‘I always have great craic in the south east. It’s a quirky corner of the country, from pikemen to strawberry pickers,’ he laughs.
Despite being on the road a lot touring, Andrew says his life has balance.
‘I tour three days a week and spend four days at home, where I’m a house husband. It all balances out and most of my mates are nine to five dads, I know which I’d prefer’.
Originally from Dublin, Andrew wanted to be a stand up comedian at the age of 16.
‘I grew up in a part of Dublin that had 40% youth unemployment, I hadn’t gone to university so when I started I didn’t have any commitments. It began at the International in Dublin at the age of 17, and it all moved so quick.
‘Ardal O’Hanlon and others formed a bridge to go to the UK and do alternative comedy, and I held on to their coattails. I wasn’t leaving anything behind and I didn’t have any commitments then’.
Although 2019 was a big year for Andrew, when he spent close to three weeks on our TV screens six nights a week during his stint on the reality show I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, this wasn’t the first time he was in Australia.
‘I was red hot to get into stand up and I first played in Edinburgh at 21 and I toured Australia then. When I came back, I decided I was going to do comedy full time.
‘In this business, you’re harvesting the crop and sowing the seed for the next one with every gig you do. You’re always thinking ahead to the next six months, nine months, a years’ time. But you’ve got to stop and enjoy what you’re doing in that moment, the audience can tell. They know whether you’re ready for the show, they’ll be ready if you are’.
Andrew soon realised that going in to the jungle was an opportunity to live in the moment.
‘I was a fan of the show and it’s just so huge, the 19th series, it was impossible to miss. My wife and my brother are huge fans and I watched it loads over the years.
‘When I toured Australia, I’d gone for a few walks in the bush but I was curious to live in the jungle and do that side of it. Sometimes in this business, of course you’ve the right to say no but if something really big comes along, you can’t’.
Andrew said that he has no regrets about entering the show or any of his actions while in the jungle.
‘Within 24 hours of being scared shitless, starving and sleeping on the floor, all the thoughts you had about it all melts away because it just doesn’t matter. After a week, even more so as your mind is completely blank.
‘About two weeks in, myself and Caitlyn Jenner, we had been on dish washing duty for three days. It was half light and everything had to be clean because if you’ve dirt, this bring rats and rats bring snakes. So we are down on our hands and knees in this filthy creak and everyone is looking forward to Christmas, so we started talking about our plans.
‘You’re in this tiny bubble, you totally forget how famous people in there with you are and it doesn’t matter. So she talked about going over to Kim and Kanye’s for Christmas, and it took me a minute to realise who she was talking about, as you just forget,’ he laughs.
Andrew said his experience in the jungle has taught him a lot about himself.
‘You’re living with no screens, no music, no nothing. One day I had not been picked to do anything, like a bush-tucker trial or a dingo-dollar challenge, so I realised I had another 12 hours to fill and I couldn’t sleep.
‘So I counted the trees. It took me three hours, but it came to 500 which I found very weird.
‘But being away from all of it, you really appreciate your life. Home comforts, things you like that, it sharpens your sense of how good your life is.
‘It made me realise that everyone has something to be appreciative of. We all have it too easy and in the rattle of hum and the relentless busyness of life, you see it for what it is when it’s all taken away’.
Being in the jungle was the longest Andrew had ever gone without performing a comedy gig.
‘It was a solid month, when I’m used to gigging once or twice a week. We just had a lot of time to do nothing, and it made me appreciate the joy of comedy and it sunk in when you put it in the context into your own life’.
Interestingly, the title of the show ‘Reality’ was born just two days before Andrew entered the jungle, but he explained that the new show won’t just be about that experience.
‘It isn’t specifically about the jungle, more the reality of my life, our world around us. I like to have a nice and vague title, as I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen day to day. ‘For example, last week on my regular BBC 4 slot I was asked to predict the outcome of the Irish general election and explain it, in the context of the madness in the UK, but you always have unpredictable social evolution.
‘I do craft gags, some of the material would have been seen at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival but I’m a write-on-stage guy, so over the space of the couple of weeks of this tour, it’ll be different from start to finish.
‘I’m very journalistically fascinated by what people think, and in today’s world what is actually the truth is increasing up for grabs. ‘I love touring in Ireland because the craic in the room is always different, and the people laugh even in between the jokes. There’s a thrill in hearing others laugh. We have this second wave of comedy, that it’s available through online clips on YouTube and dreaming services, but nothing beats being in the room with other people. ‘Everywhere has a different meter and rhythm but when Irish people decide to go to a comedy gig, they’ve already decided they’re laughing. I don’t have to convince them to laugh as you might have to elsewhere. They care about what you’re saying but it’s as much about listening. During every show I listen out for the quality of laughter in the room, and I don’t care who I share a stage with as long as they’re funny.
‘But what’s great about live comedy is that there’s a wisdom in a crowd, they tell you when you’ve gone too far. Put simply, they won’t laugh if they feel you’re not on the side of the angel. They don’t care, they’ll tell you where the line is.
‘When social media came along, we thought there’d be no more gatekeepers and you’d be your own boss. But it has gone from there being 15 editors of national newspapers, to literally a million gatekeepers, saying what you can’t see or feel.
‘I do put stuff on Twitter and Instagram, but you have to be extremely weary, more than when you’re on stage. If you’re going to try to be edgy in your content, you need to have all your homework done and explain how you came to that conclusion.
‘There’s an awful lot of alt-right crap out there about pretending to give a shit about freedom of speech, and that gets puffed up currency. So what you say has to be thought out. If you’re willing to say it to group A, you have to be ready to say it to group B as well.
‘The loudest voices online tend to be male, but any comedy audience, statistically, it tends to be 55% women in the English speaking world. Comedy as a performance art, who you are and your background means very little because once you get to that microphone, you’ve got to be funny.
‘A stand up comedian with no audience is just a lunatic talking to themselves. But there’s a freeing quality to it, because the audience know you’re nothing without them’.
Gorey Comedy Club hosts Andrew Maxwell at the Ashdown Park Hotel with resident MC Karl Spain on Saturday, March 7, with doors opening at 8 p.m.
Tickets are available now for €25 from the hotel reception or from ticketstop.ie and you can search ‘Gorey Comedy Club’ on Facebook for updates.
You can catch Andrew Maxwell on March 12 at the Crown live on Monck Street, Wexford.
Tickets are available at lantern.ie for €24 and the show starts at 8 p.m.