Today just so happens to be the birthday of this fabulous specimen of humanity:
And I just so happened to be lucky enough to catch him live last Sunday evening.
I've had a bit of an Eddie Izzard obsession since I was allowed to stay up late to watch Unrepeatable (still my favourite show) one Friday evening, I was hooked and since that day I've been simply desperate to catch him live. Luckily for me I subscribe to the Londonist and managed to snag tickets for one of the three (now extended to six - the last one plays tomorrow evening but unsurprisingly is a sell out) late night, non-publicised Work In Progress gigs that he was playing.
The show playing at 11pm on a Sunday night meant that the theatre's bar was absolutely packed for at least an hour beforehand, unless you want to pay the extortionate prices charged by the few Leicester Square clubs that stay open past 10pm on a Sunday evening it was pretty much the only option - clearly many people had decided to take it. The crowd was nicely buzzing pre-show and from the conversations I overheard as edged around the crowd there was a nice mix between Eddie aficionados, people with a passing interest and some folks who’d just come along for an evening of cheap comedy. Eventually the bar became so packed that movement was nigh on impossible – luckily the staff began seating at this point. The overall atmosphere remained incredibly friendly with spontaneous conversations breaking out between strangers, even giving those watching alone like myself the impression that they were among friends.
The London Arts Theatre is a fantastic venue, it's absolutely tiny for a start and even in the worst seats in the house (I was seated in the circle slips) I had a perfect view of the stage, a rare occurrence for someone who barely skims 5'2". The small size of the room gave the show an intimate feel, often when you see comedy performed to a large crowd it can begin to feel detached and almost clinical. This show had none of that, it was closer in feeling to a lecture – where the speaker takes his cues from the audience and adapts accordingly, something that’s impossible to achieve naturally in front of a stadium sized crowd.
Also: no hecklers. Absolute bliss! I hate fucking hecklers.
The show itself was superb, Izzard was in full on “boy mode” and unlike his other shows the material didn’t touch once on his transvestitism. It didn’t suffer for it though; instead the focus ran from weighty topics such as religion, slavery and the evolution of language right through to the horror of spiders with wings and the problems with Wikipedia the quick turnover of subjects kept the show from feeling stale while the central themes kept it somewhat grounded. The stances he took in this show were more controversial than in previous material (in so far as a radical moderate can be considered controversial at any rate) but the over all themes remained the same. The material was fresh and although there were a few rough points, references that clearly sailed over the audience’s heads, the show never began to drag. Although old topics were repeated (Latin descriptions of elephants featuring also in The Definite Article and the problems of bees and wasps from Unrepeatable among others) they were developed upon and given a new spin, rather than just repeated verbatim (Bill Bailey is a particular offender when it comes to this, as is Dylan Moran) which can jar and drag you from the flow of the show, especially if you are familiar with the material. Familiarity in this case wasn’t a disadvantage – in fact the inclusion of a few throwaway lines that harked back to previous shows was a very nice touch.
As for the standard of the material: it goes without saying that the show was superb. Izzard was on fine form and the over an hour’s worth of material he performed didn’t seem nearly long enough. The comedy flew off into the territory of the surreal – as expected – and managed to touch on topics that a few years ago Izzard probably would have shied away from. All in all a fantastic way to spend a Sunday evening (even if I did get accosted by three separate crazies on the journey home) and worth catching live on a full tour or the cost of a DVD purchase.
