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A household name in England (and other far-flung parts), the comedian-actor is known for his liberal use of cosmetics, wry wit and musings on everything from Scooby-Doo to European history.
Whereas other comics from across the pond suffer from difficulties in humor translation, Mr. Izzard has played to packed houses in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, not to mention a gig in Paris that he delivered in their native tongue.
Americans not exposed to his stand-up can check out the wit of Izzard in his current HBO special, Dress to Kill, which was taped last year in San Francisco. But will they get the joke? Mr. Izzard seems to think so.

"I always knew Americans could understand it if they understood Monty Python. I don't even understand bits of what I'm talking about," muses the comedian, on his cell phone in London. "But it's like The Simpsons - we get The Simpsons. I don't believe there's differences between humans in different countries but there's probably a general overall twist that's different.". . . [The English] used to do lots of characters: We'd come up with sketches and no one would play themselves in a star role. Americans are better creating people who create themselves."

Mr. Izzard would be the British exception to the rule. Lacking the sort of comedic "Laugh at me!" desperation shared by many stand-up artists, he instead chooses subjects we all think about to riff on, delivering his musings as though they just occurred to him.

The wild card is that he does this in high heels, lipstick, nail polish and eyeliner, calling himself "an executive transvestite" or a "male lesbian."

"At this stage in my career it's a bit social/political," he explains about his makeup use. "It's easier for me to send out a consistent signal. At the same time, in the acting world I'm trying to not play transvestites all the time. I just play guys doing stuff. I've also got to the stage where my laziness has taken over and I can't be bothered to put on makeup [offstage]. I'm in the advanced transvestite stage."

Mr. Izzard has gone fairly far with his acting, as well. Audiences may recall his performance as the manager in Velvet Goldmine, which Rolling Stone praised as "superb." Having recently wrapped the Ben Stiller/Janeane Garofalo vehicle Mystery Men, he's also finished the British film The Criminal ("a cross between The Long Good Friday and Pulp Fiction) and a fictionalized account of the filming of Nosferatu called Burned to Light with Willem Dafoe and John Malkovich.

The comedian, 37, says he knew he wanted to make films since he was 10 years old, although he took a rather circuitous route to get there.

"I did accounting in school before I started doing sketch comedy in college. I started being a street performer in 1985 and analyzed I had to do stand-up to get noticed. It took a long time to get anyone interested and now I can't beat them off with a stick. If I had to choose the route again I'd choose the same one because you learn so much. I'm now in a position where I know why I'm here and I know how to keep it fresh."

One way to do that is to take on challenges such as the revival of the Julian Barry play Lenny, based on the life of comedian Lenny Bruce. The stocky, animated English Izzard may seem the physical oppositeof the skinny, Jewish Lenny Bruce, but his ability to lose himself in characters will be tested when the play opens later this summer at the Queen's Theatre in London's West End.

"If the Lenny thing works in London it'll work for different reasons than it would in New York. In New York, they'd be judging if I can pull off being Jewish, where in London they'll be judging if it works as a dramatic piece."

Taking on something so challenging is par for the course for Mr. Izzard, who says he develops his lightning-speed stand-up "onstage. I don't actually write the stuff. It's the laziest form I could develop. I just think of things and start talking about them. The Marx Brothers used to do that - they'd do a show endlessly on Broadway and then film that. The gags had been tried and tested and by the time they filmed them they were great."

Even if Lenny is a hit (and despite his booked schedule as a film actor), Mr. Izzard says he plans another stand-up show to tour America "between January and May. We'll go to Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Toronto. Maybe Austin, Texas, or Athens, Georgia, New Orleans. You look into big college cities and they should be able to swing with it. If they can understand The Simpsons and South Park and Seinfeld then they can swing with my stuff."

21st June 1999 The Dallas Morning News

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Los Angeles Times Saturday June 12, 1999 Home Edition Calendar, Page 18

Perhaps the surest confirmation of Eddie Izzard's talent is that, after a few minutes,you forget that he's strutting about in women's platform shoes, flashing heavily made-up eyes and speaking through painted lips.

Izzard is a stand-up comic who just happens to be a transvestite--something that sets him apart from the crowd, to be sure, but not nearly so much as his intelligent, incisive humor does. A cult favorite at home in England, Izzard is now taking America by storm. Tickets to his "Dress to Kill" show were impossible to obtain during its brief run at a tiny West Hollywood theater last September. Thankfully, the show was recorded in San Francisco and debuts tonight on HBO.

Though Izzard makes passing reference to his transvestism, he's more interested in sharing his unique take on European history, American culture, dating, gun violence and whatever else pops into his head. Somehow, he manages to bend ideas out of shape, bounce them off of fun-house mirrors--and get them to reflect back as sharply detailed truths. An expressive face and a voice dripping with irony help to drive home the observations.

Ruminating on British colonialism and the practice of claiming sovereignty by planting a flag, he pictures what might have happened in India. "You can't claim us," an inhabitant says, "we live here--500 million of us." To which the British commander imperiously replies: "Do you have a flag? . . . No flag, no country."

Izzard goes on to poke fun of Americans' poor knowledge of their own history and declares Shaggy and Scooby the crowning creations of American literature.

In a delicious dig at Hollywood, he imagines an arty "Room With a View"-type British film doing just enough business in the States to be remade, with a $50-million boost in its budget, as "Room With a View of Hell." The American version is riddled with violence, of course, and its dialogue is a repetitive hiccup of obscenities, which he proceeds to deliver in the obligatory tough-guy voice.

Though not all of the jokes hit their mark, Izzard's aim is remarkably true--and he sustains it for an hour and a half. He caps his show with a routine spoken largely in French. Viewers need not be conversant in that tongue to understand the humor, however--for Izzard transcends language, just as he rises above sexuality and everything else.

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Stand-up comedy hasn't really made it in France. But that's going to change from October onwards.

So how many British comedians do you know who'd get up in front of a French audience and do their stuff in French? This is what Eddie Izzard did in his new show Glorious on October 13 to 18 in Paris, warming up for a tour of Britain until Christmas. He's tried the same trick before.

"Last time I got someone to write all my stuff out for me in French and it drove them mad, so this time I'm just going to have a few keywords and go for it. By the fifth show, I'll be in the swing of it."

Eddie Izzard is flat on his back in his trailer on the set of The Avengers, in the middle of filming his death scene in the company of Sean Connery and Uma Thurman. Contrary to his reputation as a funny man standing in a skirt on the biggest pile of awards this side of the Oscars--Best Solo Artist, Top Stand-Up Comedian, you name it--his is a straight part.

"I'm Second Bad Guy. And I don't get to say a word. The bigger the budget of the film, the less I get to say. I'm kind of 2-dimensional, enigmatic, but I try to make it into the third dimension, or failing that, the fourth."

Izzard has plenty to say about France. He is determined--even anxious--to get across his vision for his six-night stand in Paris at La Boule Noire, the venue under La Cigale.

"It's like in the mafia films. They kill the bad guy in Italian and then suddenly they're back speaking English over the dinner table. That's what Paris is going to be like for me. I'm trying to win over French people who speak a bit of English, I'm really hungry for that. I expect there'll be a good chunk of the expat community there as well, so there's got be a mix of French and English."

But does stand-up transmit to another language?

"If you're not punning on words, yes. It's universal humour. I mean, in the Outer Hebrides, the church minister reviewed me as 'abhorrent,' and I went on to sell out in Stornoway, so there must be something there. Last time I did stand-up in France, my first show was all in French and Antoine de Caunes said it was good. I thought, 'Oh yeah,' but he hadn't changed his mind two months later, so maybe it's all right."

Why Paris?

"I'm a really Euro-positive person. Europe is one fuck-off big melting pot, and we can go wherever our imagination takes us. Plus I love Paris. You know, bumming across on the Eurostar, missing La Manche and suddenly you're there. I'm starting to get the hang of the place. My family were Huguenots, got kicked out of France in the 16th-century, so Paris is a heritage thing... coming home. And I love doing interviews in French."

And the last word? Izzard wants you to forget the clichés.

"Everyone thinks that my shows are all sexuality-driven, but it's not like that. It's surreal bonkers, really, Pythonesque. Straight people think I'm going to be very gay, and the gay crowd... they think exactly the same. But I'm going to wear whatever the fuck I want, high heels or not, make-up or not, it doesn't matter. It's the right time to come, and I'm hungry for that."

132F. Oct 13-18. La Boule Noire, 120, bd. Rochechouart

Boulevard Europe Magazine

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