"I HAVE an interactive volcano on stage and I'm dressed up like Magnum PI in a Hawaiian shirt and a tiny pair of Daisy Duke cut-off denim shorts," explains comedian Andrew Maxwell (49) of what punters can expect from Krakatoa, his latest live show which he's bringing to Belfast on Sunday night.
"There's a projection of a smouldering volcano behind me and I've got a couple of smoke machines," elaborates the Dublin comic and I'm A Celebrity veteran.
"At any time during the show, for whatever reason, if anybody shouts 'Krakatoa!' - our volcano explodes. The smoke machines go off and the room goes 'kaboom'."
Clearly, Krakatoa is not your average stand-up show, then.
"It definitely adds a level of silly mayhem to the gig," offers Maxwell, who now has over 30 years' experience doing live comedy all over the world.
However, Krakatoa's interactive pyrotechnics mean he's currently probing the level of trust between performer and audience like never before, while simultaneously offering everyone a ‘nuclear option’ to defeat hecklers.
"I did it in Edinburgh last year for a month and I took it to the Galway Comedy Festival in the autumn, so I know it works," explains Maxwell, who also does the voice-overs for hit reality show Ex-On The Beach.
"The show itself is an hour of stand-up, taking in current affairs and silly stories about my life as always.
“There was one night in Edinburgh where I was doing a bit about local Scottish politics - which makes Northern Irish politics seem normal and sane and productive, by the way - when this one guy who was super drunk stood up and started shouting.
"He starts going 'I've paid my money for this, it's an outrage' - but instantly, somebody went 'Krakatoa!' and the volcano drowned him out.
"Everybody started laughing and at that stage, he should have backed away: instead, he stands up again and starts telling off everyone in the room for being 'silly'. He's wagging his finger and going 'You're all being ridiculous, you're all being silly' - and then, of course, somebody else shouted 'Krakatoa!' again.
"It just unleashes a level of extra fun and mayhem."
The record for most 'eruptions' is currently held by the audience at one of the aforementioned Edinburgh shows - "the third Saturday at Edinburgh was particularly insane," chuckles Maxwell, who admits that he does occasionally find himself stuggling to re-connect with the crowd through a post-"Krakatoa!" fug.
"It does get pretty smoky on stage, and about halfway through the run there was one show where I did a high-kick in an attempt to clear the smoke out of the way.
“The whole audience went 'Oh!', as a roomful of people accidentally saw a 48-year-old man's testicle."
There goes our suggestion that an extra element of 'mayhem' could be added to proceedings if Maxwell were to further trim down his short shorts with each 'eruption'.
"To be honest there's already a bit of 'brain' hanging out at the best of times," he advises.
While an exploding volcano makes for an excellent gimmick, it's just the latest in a series of 'outside the box' innovations Maxwell has employed to keep things interesting for himself and audiences.
"I've been performing at the Edinburgh Fringe for almost 30 years," explains the comic, who started doing live comedy at 17.
"It's almost a cycle of once every five years, I'll get bored of just doing stand-up and add an extra weird dimension.
"Previously, I've had my old breakdance crew on stage, with me dressed up as a hip-hop Dracula. Instead of applauding, I would get the audience to howl at me: when they would howl, the stage lighting went from normal to a projection of a full moon, and then the performers would also have to stand in the full moon and howl. So, we essentially became a ‘late-night howling cult’.
"That stuff comes from a really practical position of me not wanting to be on stage doing a gig acting like I want to be there. Because an audience can spot if an entertainer doesn't really want to be there. They just know."
Thus, having only recently endured lockdowns wiping live comedy from the face of the Earth, the Andrew Maxwell who'll be inviting Belfast to repeatedly shout 'Krakatoa!' at him on Sunday night is definitely looking forward to doing so - no matter what logistical annoyances might lie in wait for him between now and the moment he hits the stage at The Limelight.
"The hardest part of a life for a performer is the planes, trains and automobiles," offers Maxwell, whose weekly podcast Eejits of The World, in which he and Canadian co-host Glen Wool dissect the idiotic behaviour of eejits in the news and from throughout history, comes highly recommended.
"It's the hotels, it's the loneliness of the road, the isolation of missing your loved ones, s*** sleep, s*** food, you know what I mean? That's the work, that's the actual f***ing job.
"So, years ago, it occurred to me, like 'I've got to make that stage owe me'. Because I left the house at nine this morning and then I got stuck in a motorway traffic jam, or I had a nightmare, bumpy f***ing flight, and then the taxi driver didn't show and the hotel messed up my booking.
"After all of that kerfuffle and drag, you've got to make sure that YOU, as an entertainer, are looking forward to that gig in the evening: that YOU are gonna have a great time.
"If you can do that, the minute you say 'hello' to an audience, they can tell 'oh, he's happy to be here with us' and the whole thing will just go up a notch. They'll have a better time, and you'll have a better time.
"That's the reason why I try new things out, and I try and keep writing new material and trying to find new ways to reach out to audiences. And at this stage, my audiences definitely know that I have a reputation for occasionally doing something ridiculous.
"But this will be the first time I'll have unleashed the volcano on the people of Belfast, and I really can't wait."
Let's just hope those smoke machines can cope with a Bank Holiday weekend crowd that's primed and ready to erupt.
:: Andrew Maxwell, Sunday April 30, The Limelight, Belfast. Tickets via limelightbelfast.com
