Eddie Izzard charmed a Theatre Royal audience with his usual obsessions - God, puberty and The Great Escape


BY SEAN KIRBY/www.thisisnottingham.co.uk

If success means being able to wear what you want to work then Eddie Izzard knows that he really arrived.

Britain's only self-styled "action transvestite" opened his two-day, sell out stint at Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall last night resplendent in a black, wet look PVC jacket, skirt and four inch high heels.

Stepping down from a 15ft high purple rose to a rock star style sound and light set, his entrance was a far cry from the grey suited comic who began his climb six years ago with the acclaimed West End show "Live at the Ambassadors" .

But a TV special, three movie parts and five best-selling stand-up videos have not taken the edge off a comic whose biggest asset is that he seems to have no edge.

Relaxed to the point of scribbling pretend notes in mid-flow when an observation falls flat — "whoops, completely lost them there" — Izzard still has the ability to charm a laugh out of you.

Not that the man famous for not wanting to do TV — despite always seeming to be on it — had anything to worry about.

A packed house was happy to laugh at his regular obsessions with the "The Great Escape", puberty and a James Mason voiced God as well his new observations on why we should all be more European.

Who knows, if he ever swapped comedy for politics the British public might even vote him into Brussels — on the right platform (shoes), of course.

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