Comedy

If you met Maxwell as he is on stage in a bar, you wouldn’t be sure whether to giggle or feel intimidated. However, the Dublin-born comic’s overpowering machismo is all tongue-in-cheek: he dresses in white shorts and chains. His ridiculous gestures and antics skilfully take the edge off his fierce delivery which could otherwise seem provocatively aggressive.

He excels at conveying ridiculous images, from an ad campaign he designed for an embarrassing medical condition to the ninja father who has to 'stealth-wank' to avoid being caught by his children. Maxwell sets them up, and sits back to laughs of recognition.  

An interesting move is his habit of drawing on surprising statistics (such as that three out of four gun crimes take place with a fake gun) as the jumping-off point for gags. This allows him to imagine delicious what-if scenarios, combining one unlikely fact with another to pose a deft question that you can’t help but beam at.

It’s got to be said that the show’s content is pretty unrelated to its title. A lamp of the Aladdin variety does feature, but more as a table decoration than a prop but this really doesn’t matter. Despite having no overarching theme, the show is an hour of solid material. Maxwell’s tight wordplay is delivered as though he's freestyling, unpredictable and dangerous. At one point he asked an audience member to stop filming, saying furtively, 'It’s between us'.  

His writing is exquisite, cynical and insightful, he makes laughing a dirty pleasure. Rude and macho it may be, but this lamp is definitely worth rubbing.