When you get to a certain age, Andrew Maxwell suggests during his Fringe show The Bare Maximum, the sexiest thing you can be is competent. Which must mean Maxwell, now 50, is hot as hell right now.
Because it’s hard to imagine a more competent stand-up at this year’s Fringe. It’s important to note that competent in this case is not a marker for a mere “this will do”. The bare minimum, if you will. That’s not what the show is called, after all.
Rather, it’s competent as in something to rely on, to be confident of. All of this applies to Maxwell in this early evening show. You know from the start you are in safe hands here.
There is nothing too showy, nothing too dramatic. Rather, we are being entertained by a surefooted comedian who will amuse and entertain and offer insight and a little bit of personal revelation. It is not the loudest show on the Fringe, nor the most energetic. But it is welcoming, assured, not trying too hard because it doesn’t have to. This is comedy in cruise control.As for The Bare Maximum, t
here’s no overarching theme, no big message here. Instead, we have Maxwell talking about the state of the world in 2024 through the lens of his amused incomprehension. There is, unfortunately, no shortage of material, but Maxwell gives it a fresh twist by looking at it through an Irish lens.
It’s a lens he ultimately turns on himself. The climax of the show shifts to his own idiocy, and a story he wouldn’t tell anyone, he admits, if he wasn’t a comedian.
And then there’s a coda that is sentimental and sweet and full of love and will make you smile and catch a breath. What more could you want from a stand-up show?
If only competence was contagious.
Andrew Maxwell: The Bare Maximum, Just the Tonic Nucleus, 5.40pm, until August 25 (except August 12)
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/andrew-maxwell-the-bare-maximum
Teddy Jamieson
