Comedy Review: Andrew Maxwell: All Talk, Underbelly George Square, Edinburgh

Irish comic Andrew Maxwell tells us he loves eejits, which is just as well, since he now lives in Kent – the heart of pro-Brexit England.

Andrew Maxwell skewers our Brexit-addled times in his new show.

Andrew Maxwell:All Talk, Underbelly George Square, Edinburgh ****

The idiocy of post-logic, post-fact, post-truth contemporary politics and the nightmarish slow car-crash of Brexit fill him with mirth. And he has a solution to the whole thing which is both ingenious and unexpected.

There is no particular theme to his new Edinburgh show – but if there were, it could be the pleasure and the advantages of not taking life too seriously. Middle-aged Maxwell is a less angry and more contented creature – albeit one who has lost none of his fierce intelligence and independent outlook.

Nonetheless, there are plenty of big laughs in this show. Maxwell’s superb mimicry allows him to populate his show with a whole range of characters, from rabid Kent Brexiteers to Italian chip shop owners, and he has a brilliantly absurd theory about why the Leeds accent is the king of all the regional varieties of English.

He’s a connoisseur of the ridiculous, and yet is not the slightest bit cynical – a refreshing quality in these distressing times when so many things in the world are so stupid. Getting older suits him and there’s a genuine warmth and wisdom to mellow Maxwell gold, which is unexpectedly soothing to the soul.

Until August 25

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