A comedian has to have input to have output and Andrew Maxwell certainly has oodles of input.

Supernatural, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival last year, knits together a string of vivid globetrotting anecdotes, from gigging in Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison to a close shave on Sunset Strip. Some tales are a little old but the impish Irishman’s sheer skill constantly breathes new life into them.

Maxwell has a knack for finding the funnies wherever he goes. Like a Hunter S Thompson of stand-up, he cannot step outside his front door without incident. He hilariously recalls how a quiet drink resulted in performances for both Protestant loyalists and Sinn Fein, while a passing remark on television led to an approach to become the official face of erectile dysfunction in Ireland.

His relaxed, inclusive manner, honed by 15 hard-grafting years on the road, effortlessly draws the audience in. While he is no satirist he still has plenty of persuasive lines about contemporary issues, including abducted children, Polish builders and Somalian pirates. During a stand-out riff on street violence he sharply observes that if criminality was judged by the quantity of knives owned “my mother would be a gangster”.

This is storytelling at its best. Sometimes Maxwell has such a keen eye he barely has to craft a gag. At one point he merely recounts the comment of a zookeeper following the escape of an orang-utan: “He was planning it for years.”

But the comic cannot resist the last laugh, comparing the breakout to the Shawshank Redemption. Not so much a gig, more a comedy masterclass.
24-28 February (020 7478 0100, www.sohotheatre.com)