Eddie
Izzard Blake Theatre, Monmouth 3:02pm Monday 17th November 2008
By Maria Williams | SouthWalesArgus.co.uk
THE
self-styled action transvestite was off duty as a bearded Eddie Izzard stalked
onto the stage in jeans and a tailcoat. Fresh from Hollywood success, Izzard was
back to his stand-up roots with his Strict Tour, which is soon set to transfer
to London’s West End. He was on great stream-of- consciousness form at his sell-out
show in Monmouth. His set was littered with characters such as Noah and his wife
Margaret, cannabis-smoking assassins, the traumatised squirrel and a jazz chicken.
The crowd was watching a master stand-up comic at the peak of his talent, not
even being thrown when logging on to Wikipedia with his 3G phone to look up Symonds
Yat to discover that the man who wrote the web entry was in the audience. Izzard’s
scenes were big – religion, science and why we are all here, but he never veered
into preachy agit prop – Izzard’s world of the absurd was enough to seduce any
crowd to his ideas. Beneath it all, there was a streak of humanism a mile wide
in his thoughts. Little wonder he left the stage to such rapturous applause.
Cornwall: Eddie Izzard Wows the Hall for Cornwall Review
by Lee Trewhela
WHAT a thrill for a comedian of Eddie Izzard's
stature to be playing Truro – and he didn't disappoint.
Although,
his rambling, largely ad-libbed socio-political fop on acid schtick can lead to
as many troughs as peaks.
Eddie chose to play in Cornwall as
an old friend, Catherine Bicknell, who lives in Feock and happens to be a colleague
of mine, suggested it. Simple as that.
Along with a few other
low-key warm-up gigs across the country, this was a try-out for his stand-up show
Stripped which starts a run in the West End soon and has already toured
America.
No laughing at the minutiae of day-to-day life for
Eddie, this was a look at the big themes – basically, that there is no God.
So
we went from Noah, dinosaurs and the Stone Age, through to the Greeks and Romans.
Eddie
questioned the presence of an omnipotent power with the help of a squirrel who
seemed to have come from The Bronx and Charles Darwin's well-known theory of evolution,
Monkey, Monkey, Monkey, YOU!
His previous look at gender politics
was missing – there was one brief mention of his transvestism but he was dressed
more like an ageing yet sexy rock star than Marilyn Monroe.
There
were highs – an exaggerated study of tennis players' pornographic grunts and groans
was tear-inducingly hilarious.
But there were also dips where
his surreal ramblings didn't quite hit the mark, especially a plain bizarre encore
about the moon. But when you consider that the majority of the two-hour performance
is ad-libbed then we can do nothing but bow down to Eddie's astonishing talent.
It
was all very entertaining and the audience was in rapture (especially at his recurring
theme of mining tin, surfing on tin, tin hats etc etc). Let's hope his sell-out
appearance leads to other big-name shows at the Hall.
Eddie
told me before the show that he was seriously considering entering European politics,
and with his strong socialist views and sheer charisma it wouldn't be beyond the
realms of imagination to one day see him as president of the continent. A rambling
fop of a president, mind.
US
REVIEWS
New
York: " There are no words to describe Eddie Izzard's performance last
night (Sunday, June 29) at Radio City Music Hall in New York City -- except for
his words, which I can't reproduce here, because there were so many of them, delivered
so precisely, so hysterically, that it boggled the mind. Plus, you really have
to hear him say them, and watch his incredibly mobile features and his incredibly
mischievous eyes as he speaks them. And his body language. That's a language that
stands on its own. Imitating the Rockettes. And monkeys. And dinosaurs, and out-of-breath
Roman messengers who had trouble with their Latin declensions and tenses and couldn't
find the right words to tell the battle commander that Hannibal was on his way
through the Alps to attack them. . . . with elephants . . . that look like big
pigs with squirrels draped over their faces. When it was over, two solid hours
after it started, with no intermission, with Eddie talking consistently at 500
mph and never missing a beat, I was exhausted. But HE had the energy at the curtain
call, after the encore, to run up 2.5 flights of stairs on the left side of the
hall to take a bow from a balcony, run back down and across the stage, and then
up 2.5 flights of stairs on the right side of the hall for another bow, and down
back to the stage. The show was beyond brilliant. If you live in the US, find
a way to see him -- he'll be out West for July and early August. " -- Peggie
Indianpolis:
"It started with a roar and the audience lept to it's feet. Really a roar.
I was surprised and I was there. Eddie came out and bowed and the roar went up
again. He said "you know after a welcome like that it's like AHHHH1" After that
the whole thing went of really well. At one point he made a bad pun and the whole
audience groaned, Eddie froze and flipped us a slow circular bird then went back
to the show. Outside, there was a line waiting for him that reached from the entrance
to the back door. I didn't get to stay but as usual Eddie kills. " -- Joy
British funnyman EDDIE IZZARD
is planning another historic stand-up gig in mainland Europe with a Berlin show
completely in German. The bilingual comic has already won acclaim for performing
an all-French gig in Paris, France - he's now planning another trip to Europe
and this time he will be brushing up on his German. Izzard, who plays a German
officer in Tom Cruise's new movie Valkyrie, tells WENN, "They say the Germans
have no sense of humour and I'm going to prove them wrong by doing gigs in Berlin.
"I've been planning this for some time; in another two years. It'll be at the
Quatsch Comedy Club in Berlin. I talked to them five years ago about doing it
but I have to do Paris first in French, which I've already done, and then stand-up
in German in Berlin."
THE CRAZY BRAIN OF EDDIE IZZARD
Lovingly scanned by the crazy brain of Amy. Click for larger views.
Eddie’s
back with his BIG INTIMACY TOUR – STRIPPED TOO. After selling out Wembley Stadium
and 17 other arenas in England & Europe Eddie’s bringing his expanded, updated
and new arena format show to ORACLE Arena in Oakland for 1 night only. Don’t miss
your only chance to see Eddie Live in the Bay Area in STRIPPED TOO, The Big Intimacy
Tour.
Exclusive Pre-Sale: Begins: Monday, September 14 at
10:00 am Ends: Saturday, September 19 at 10:00 pm
General Public On-Sale:
Sunday, September 20 @ 10 am
Password: Izzard
Tickets: $52.50,
$78.75 and $81.75* * Prices include 5% facility fee. Additional service charges
may apply. Limit 6 tickets per order, subject to availability & prior sale,
cannot be combined with any other offers.
FROM
TWITTER - Anymore gigs in Sweden? - Yes. Stockholm and Gothenburg.
Also Oslo in Norway. - Where do I get tickets? Can't find anything on your
website - Tickets for Sweden, Norway & Malmo/Denmark not available yet
EDDIE PLANS 'STRIPPED' ARENA TOUR Eddie Izzard
will be returning to the UK for an arena tour of his hit show Stripped this winter.
Izzard took the tour around the USA last year, receiving rave reviews. This was
followed by a sell-out run at the Lyric Theatre in London's West End. He will
now be taking the show to a wider UK audience beginning with two nights at the
Trent FM Arena, Nottingham on October 23rd-24th. He will then call at Sheffield,
Newcastle, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham, Cardiff, Bournemouth and
Brighton. The tour concludes at the beginning of December with three nights in
London - one night at The O2 Arena, followed by two nights at Wembley Arena. Tickets
for all shows are on sale from 10:00am, this Saturday 31st January and will be
available here.
(From Ents24.com)
WARMUP GIG Eddie
Izzard will play a rare warm-up for his forthcoming West End run at the Hall for
Cornwall at 8pm on Tuesday, November 11. Tickets go on sale on Friday and are
£30 each plus 85p Theatre Fund payment from the box office on 01872 262466 or
www.hallforcornwall.co.uk
Following his sell-out tour across 34 cities
in the US, Eddie Izzard returns to London's West End with 23 performances of 'Stripped'
at The Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue.
Eddie is keen to ensure that
all members of the site are given priority booking, consequently the fans have
an exclusive booking period from Wed 1st Oct at 10pm to buy tickets before they
go on general release on Thursday 2nd Oct at 10pm.
These exclusive tickets
are available through
THIS LINK and will be limited to a maximum of 8 per person.
The Lyric
Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue Nov 17th - Dec 12th 08 No performance Sundays
NEW ORLEANS BENEFIT Eddie Izzard,
an adventurous standup comedian as well as star of the FX drama "The Riches,"
will perform a benefit concert at 7:30 p.m. June 23 at Tulane University's McAlister
Auditorium. The show is a late addition to Izzard's summer-long "Stripped" tour
of America, which has been winning rave reviews wherever it's played so far. Proceeds
will go to Neighborhood Housing Services of New Orleans. Tickets go on sale Sat,
06/07/08 10:00 AM CDT via Ticketmaster, (504) 522-5555 or www.ticketmaster.com.
Neighborhood Housing Services of New Orleans -- which helps low- and moderate-income
New Orleanians become home owners -- will be the recipient of 100 percent of the
proceeds, and Ticketmaster has agreed to donate a portion of its ticket fees to
the organization as well. There will be a special reception with Izzard after
the show for "Producer Circle" ticket holders.
From Pittsburgh:
Eddie said he won't be doing meet and greets anymore just Q&A's after the
shows.
"Oh, and since I was the person who asked about merch at the
beginning of the tour, I should add that there are child-sized t-shirts that say
"Covered in Bees", if you have Eddie-loving hipster children in your life. They're
red with black old-fashioned lettering and, of course, bees. They were selling
for $20." -- Minneapolis (thanks Annette)
They're selling several styles
of T-shirts specifically for the Stripped tour, as well as classics like "Covered
in Bees", "Cake or Death?" and a "Glorious" T-shirt. They had dogtags and keychains,
two 8x10 photos, previous tour DVD's, and a very nice program. T-shirts ranged
from $25-35, while the photos were $5 each and the programs were $15. (thanks
Annette and LiveJournal)