Series Arc
One Man's Magnificent Decline.
Maxwell's Madness spans 2007–2026 - a rich, character-driven story with enough depth, incident and dark humour to sustain multiple series across its full arc.
Series 1 · 2007–2013
The Wasted Advantages
Max is at his relative high point: ten years clean, a flat in New Islington, a studio in the Northern Quarter. He sells up, pockets £250,000 and buys a Maserati he barely drives above 25 mph. A "pump and dump" share scam, a stint in Da Nang, and a disastrous kidney operation he was warned not to have - each one a step he can never walk back.
Series 2 · 2013–2020
The Shrinking World
Max's world contracts. He loses the Maserati, gives up work, drifts between cheap hotel rooms in Vietnam and subsidised housing in Manchester. The tone is bittersweet: bedbug infestations, benefit reassessment paranoia, airport meltdowns over keys that were in his bag all along. But the viewer feels the weight of wasted opportunity and the slow death of a social circle.
Series 3 · 2020–2026
Illness as Identity
After both parents die, Max becomes emotionally married to his illnesses. He abandons NA, spends hours researching morgues, asks friends to source him a gun, and insists he is genuinely dying despite mostly manageable diagnoses. On New Year's Day 2026, Phil, Ian, Alisha and Damon stage an intervention. Two possible endings - one tragic, one bleakly realistic - await.