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Eddie Izzard
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Eddie Izzard is a unique voice in comedy, with a diverse, international background that lends him a fresh, cosmopolitan perspective; he is ... known for his transvestism, having coined the phrase "a heterosexual in a man's body." His delivery focuses on the absurd or surreal aspects of everyday things, and he has a unique knack for personifying inanimate objects, bestowing voices that seem uncannily accurate upon such unlikely characters as socks, earwigs, and cats, among others. The show captured here was originally performed in 1994 at the Albery theater, and his hilarious routine covers topics such as the sound of a cat purring; being a revolutionary liberal; bird migration; and horror movie conventions, to name only a few.
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Arguably one of the most exciting and compelling performers in the world, Eddie Izzard is a paradox to the core. Simultaneously spontaneous and polished, focused yet vague, Izzard mixes surrealism and strangeness with the everyday to create hilarious results. He waffles, goes off on tangents and sometimes finds complete sentences a waste of time, but he hits the comedy mark time after time.
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The distinction between predominantly gay drag queens and largely heterosexual transvestites, like himself, is one that English stand-up comic and actor Eddie Izzard has frequently addressed at the outset of his shows. He’ll further distinguish between the “action” or “executive” transvestite—again, like himself—and the “weirdo” transvestite (exhibit A: J. Edgar Hoover).
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Eddie Izzard briefly attended the University of Sheffield. He has engaged in campaigning work, including opposing the closure of the departments of Drama and Languages, Linguistics and Translation at the University of East Anglia and supporting the further integration of the UK into the European Union. In May 2005 he appeared on the BBC's political debate show 'Question Time', describing himself as a 'British European', comparing it to other cultural identities such as 'African American'. As part of his integration campaigning, he was one of the first people to spend a Euro in London. This pan-European aspect has influenced his work as well; he regularly performs in French, an acquired language, in addition to English. In July 2003, he was made an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England for 'pro-Europe campaigning', 'his contribution to promoting modern languages and tolerance of other cultures and lifestyles' and for having 'transcended national barriers' with his humour.
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Eddie Izzard shows how in tune with his audience he is in the piece titled "San Francisco." Only real San Franciscans know the subtleties of the naming conventions of this place and Izzard had has an astute teacher. But even non-residents will appreciate the laugh-out-loud humor of "Scooby Doo" and "President Kennedy."
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Sadly, perhaps, Eddie Izzard is as renowned for his cross-dressing as he is his gloriously idiosyncratic stand-up style which marries sharp observation and a taste for surreal yet meticulously engineered narratives. Born in Yemen in 1962, he was brought up in Wales and Northern Ireland. His mother died when he was six, at which point he and his brother entered English boarding schools. He credits Peter Sellers with turning him on to comedy, getting his first laughs in school revues at the age of 12. Upon leaving school, he took his self-described brand of "talking bollocks with more bollocks on top" to the national circuit, notably the Edinburgh Festival where, in 1991, he ended up with a prestigious Perrier Comedy Award nomination. Generating intense interest, ironically, for resisting the move to television, he hit London's West End in 1993 for a run which extended from four to 13 weeks and propelled him into comedy's top ranks.
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Eddie Izzard