Eddie Izzard's Keynsham pub gig

He’s used to having comedy audiences eating out of his hand - but Eddie Izzard had a slightly trickier crowd to deal with when he visited Keynsham.
The comedian, actor and long-distance runner is the second celebrity campaigner to join the effort to help Labour’s Dan Norris hold on to his marginal seat.
For 90 minutes at the Trout Tavern in Temple Street, he regaled a packed pub garden with the reasons why they should vote for North East Somerset candidate Mr Norris – and announced his own political aspirations.
The 48-year-old star will be wowing Canadians on stage in Toronto on Friday, but yesterday he was on his 22nd stop out of 25 across the country to muster votes for Labour in the General Election.

“I was in Gloucester this morning...” said the indefatigable performer, before reeling off every town and city he has graced wearing a rosette before then.
“The sun is shining in Keynsham and that’s because of the Labour Party.
“As a street performer I’m used to talking to people a lot and I want to point out that Britain is not broken, like the Tories will tell you. It’s brilliant. And that’s the Britain I believe in.”
Izzard’s appearance was the second from a household name to back Mr Norris, a junior minister in the last government.
Queen guitarist Brian May joined Mr Norris at the weekend to back his stance against fox hunting.
Izzard, who has made his own election broadcast called Brilliant Britain, spent an hour fielding questions on issues from child tax credits to pensions alongside Mr Norris, who has represented the Wansdyke constituency – now redrawn and renamed North East Somerset – for the last 13 years.
Karen Perry, 51, from Winterbourne, was impressed with his impromptu performance.
She said: “It is great for a comedy actor to have a serious side. He put things across in layman’s terms and probably helped Dan Norris reach a few more people today.”
Izzard said he was happy to help the party: “I’m not wheeled out here. I’m self-propelled. I volunteered for this. “Judge the celebrities on what they’ve done with their lives and if you like it, listen. If you don’t like it, don’t listen.
“The public are intelligent enough that if they don’t agree with what I say then they won’t listen.”
Izzard is a valuable commodity after capturing the nation’s imagination running 43 marathons in 51 days around the UK, raising money for Sport Relief.
And his boundless enthusiasm is bound for politics – but not for a decade.
He said: “My own aspirations are for 10 years’ time. I’ve worked my backside off to get my career going so I’m not going to drop it. It would need to go into deep hibernation if I stand (as an MP).”
Pub landlord Jim McCarthy joked: “I’m just waiting for Bruce Springsteen to come here now.”

Eddie Izzard on Marathon.

Last summer Eddie Izzard decided to run around England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales though not necessarily, as Eric Morecambe said, in the right order. The touching and thought provoking programme, Eddie Izzard: Marathon Man, was buried alive quite late at night on BBC3.

To say he did it for Sports Relief is true up to a point. The real reason is harder to fathom. He had to run 1,000 miles – 43 consecutive marathons – followed by a motorised rickshaw (with the camera crew) and an ice-cream van (with Flake 99s). To see him stumbling along in blinding rain, no cheers, no crowds, no pavements, carrying the sodden flag of the appropriate country, made you want to shout: "Excelsior!"

Towards the end of the 10th marathon, he collapsed. When they told him there were three switchback miles to go, he said: "I do that then." His therapist begged him to walk, but he did it running and, to celebrate, freewheeled downhill into Builth Wells (pop. approx 2,000) and a rousing civic reception.

The Scene Cross-dressing comedian Izzard at the Burt in May

BRITISH comic Eddie Izzard is bringing his one-man show, Eddie Izzard: Stripped, to the Burton Cummings Theatre on Monday, May 10. Izzard, known for his outrageous and occasionally cross-dressed stage persona, also has a list of film and TV acting credits that includes The Riches, Ocean's Thirteen and Across the Universe. Tickets for the show are $58.80 and $69.30, on sale March 20 at Ticketmaster.
Bobcat returns to standup roots at Rumor's
BOBCAT Goldthwait will make a two-night appearance at Rumor's Restaurant and Comedy Club on April 9 and 10. the comedian/actor/director, a veteran of the Police Academy movies whose behind-the-camera credits include Shakes the Clown and Important Things with Demetri Martin, recently wrote and directed the Robin Williams comedy World's Greatest Dad. Tickets for the shows (7:45 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. both nights) are $25, available at Rumor's.

Local comics join Izzard to joke for 46664 charity

Local comedians such as Trevor Noah, David Kau, Marc Lottering, Riaad Moosa, John Vlismas, Chris Forest and Ndumiso Lindi will feature in the show called, 46664 It's No Joke.

To mark the 20th anniversary of the end of Nelson Mandela's 27 years of incarceration, the comedians will on February 27 take to the stage at Sun City's Superbowl for the first installation.

International director of the 46664 campaign, Tim Massey, said the campaign used the "universal language of sport, music and entertainment to deliver messages of care, prevention and hope to the youth and young adults of the world".
"We are delighted with the reaction to the announcement of Eddie Izzard's gigs and equally thrilled to have all these top acts, performing together," he said.

Real Concerts spokeswoman Kim Mari said: "The aim . is to involve even more international comedians . and to travel the world raising funds."

'I bag America to believe I'm a transvestite' to Eddie Izzard

Eddie Izzard is giving Hollywood stardom a rest while he returns to touring his stand up. He talks to Gavin Allen about strategic transvestitism and the potential of arena comedy.
EDDIE Izzard has been in ‘boy mode’ so long that America can hardly believe he’s a transvestite.
While cultivating his film and TV career in Los Angeles he made the decision to tone down his wardrobe, and the strategy has served him well.
He landed the lead role in HBO series The Riches, as well as film roles alongside the likes of Tom Cruise in Valkyrie.
“I believed that if I had turned up for the auditions for The Riches or Valkyrie in make up and a dress, I would not get the roles,” he says.
But as a result, the flip side of this approach is that the Eddie Izzard America knows is perhaps a less colourful character than the one we cherish here, although he certainly isn’t hiding himself.
“I tell everyone I’m a transvestite over and over again,” he says, baffled by the flipped logic of the situation.
“I insist and I beg people to believe it on TV (interviews) and I never thought that I would be on TV begging people to believe I’m a transvestite.
“But I am being strategic about this. I’ve been in boy mode for the last few years, but I know I can be in girl mode if I want to.
“If I wanted to, I could throw on a dress right now and if I went out in the street and people insulted me, then I would insult them back.
“ I would know what to do. It’s all still there. It’s in my toolbox. I am a card-carrying transvestite. Always have been, always will be.
“The thing is, if you are a straight transvestite like me, you have all this boy stuff going on – mainly boy stuff in fact – as well as the girly stuff.
I like football.
“I was going to join the Army when I was younger.
“And I just ran 43 marathons, which is not a terribly girlie thing to do.”
Oh yes, the marathons.
His marathon of marathons in fact. Izzard recently completed 43 marathons in 51 days for Sport Relief on a route which took him back to parts of Wales where he grew up; Neath, Porthcawl and Swansea.
How long did it take him to recover from the feat?
“It wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be,” he says. I didn’t really run for about eight days. But that was it. I was fine.”
Tonight he finds himself back in Wales for the first of three dates at Cardiff International Arena with his Stripped tour.
We now have a steady production line of arena comedy shows, but it was Izzard who started the trend, and while some rail that comedy gets lost in such cavernous rooms, he argues performers simply aren’t doing it right yet.
“Six years ago, I did the first arena tour of the UK and that was a little scary because I didn’t know what I would be dealing with,” he says.
“People will say it’s not intimate, but I’m doing smaller shows too on this tour and if people don’t want to watch it there, then don’t watch it there.
“But I definitely think it’s a good thing. It makes it more of an event. And why should rock and roll get all the arena shows?
“The only way to get good at arena gigs is to do loads of them.
“If you think of the first ever arena gig, when The Beatles did Shea Stadium in 1965, it was a crap gig. Great band, great event but a crap gig because you couldn’t hear anything.
But look at what U2 are doing in stadiums now.
“People have had to learn how to play stadium gigs in music.
“And comedy has to go through the same thing, we just have to work out how to play arenas.
“No-one bats an eyelid when bands play arenas and if it’s a good thing for bands it’s a good thing for comedy.”
Eddie Izzard is at the CIA tonight and on November 19 and 20.

At Newcastle Metro Radio Arena, Eddie Izzard

Eddie Izzard it’s been more than a year since returned to the land of stand up following a five year film making, TV writing hiatus.
And at the end of last week, his Tyneside fans finally got to look Stripped, the show which hailed his return. His double date with the Metro Radio Arena followed the show’s long run in the US, a residency in the West End and then a bit of a break while Eddie ran 43 marathons in 51 days for Sport Relief (including a rainy day run over the Tyne Bridge in September).
For his latest show, the nation’s favourite action transvestite has put the heels and the skirt on the back burner. This is probably a sensible shoe choice, since the show offers a journey through civilisation from the Stone Age to space travel... touching on lots of what went on in between. In the beginning of the show, Izzard announces he has come to the conclusion that there is no God... and he uses the next two hours to prove it, with the help of a string of animal, historical and even human organ characters, delivered in a succession of his signature – and wonderfully absurd – roleplays.
The recurring yanky squirrel and trumpet-playing chicken, together with a frustrated appendix all deserve special mentions... as does the panic-stricken Giraffe trying to communicate the arrival of a tiger to his mates via the medium of ‘Give Us A Clue’, his take on the stories of Noah and Moses and the Spartan soldier who sacrifices himself on a 20ft Grecian spear and lives to lament. A Latin-laden section also had me laughing my little soccos off.
Oh, how we’d missed him.

Comparison to kray twins, Eddie Izzard is not to acute

EDDIE Izzard has become an unlikely victim of the Tweeting, Facebooking generation.
It seems a number of people are acute to claim mate status with Eddie even though he doesn’t have a clue who they are.
The surreal stand up master, who comes to Liverpool for two arena dates this weekend, tells Insider: “I have found people from many change years saying they went to school with me.
“I think, I don’t even know who you are, then it turns out they were three years before or five years after me.
“I suppose it’s a bit like being John Lennon or The Kray Twins.
“I’m happy with the John Lennon comparison, less so with the Kray Twins.”