Eddie Izzard
Faith, Politics and Eating His Own Leg
From humble beginnings on the streets of London town, via his breakthrough Emmy Award winning show Dress to Kill, and on into the rarefied air of Hollywood success, Eddie Izzard now straddles the worlds of stage and screen like a bulging high heeled colossus. On the eve of his arrival in Australia as part of his wildly successful Force Majeure tour, Collide spoke with everyone’s favourite renaissance transvestite.
‘Force Majeure’ has been touted as the largest comedy tour ever. What inspired you to undertake such a massive jaunt, and are there any particularly exotic locales or gigs that have stood out for you so far?
Well, you say the largest comedy tour, but it’s actually the most extensive comedy tour. I need to get this correct because someone could say “I sold more tickets” by staying in their own backyard or whatever. It’s definitely already the most extensive comedy tour. I’m going to be playing Kathmandu!
By Andrew Lennon
Do you find that when performing in different languages the linguistic idiosyncrasies of each make you approach the material differently?
No, I do it exactly the same - almost word for word. I do that deliberately to show that we’re all the same. I thought it would be more difficult, but say I’m talking about human sacrifice and I say, “Human Sacrifice - why the hell did that happen? Why did we have people saying ‘Oh no, the crops have failed - LET’S KILL STEVE’. It’s an insane idea. Why did we do that?”. In St Petersburg and Istanbul and Belgrade, they all got it.
