{"id":119927,"date":"2025-11-05T21:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T21:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/119927\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T21:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T21:33:09","slug":"queen-of-comedy-eddie-izzard-on-40-years-of-being-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/119927\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen of comedy: Eddie Izzard on 40 years of being out"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n It\u2019s possibly unreasonable teasing Eddie \u2013 now Suzy, but either is fine \u2013 Izzard about laziness. After all she, then he, once ran 43 marathons in 51 days then, six years later, ran 27 marathons in 27 days, then 31 marathons in 31 days, the last with a stand-up gig
\n each day. All for charity.\n <\/p>\n

And right now she\u2019s in the middle of two different world tours, which will be performed in English, French, German and Spanish. One is for a solo Hamlet, in which she performs some 23 roles from Shakespeare\u2019s longest play on a bare stage.<\/p>\n

But the other \u2013 and this is where the laziness thought comes in \u2013 is a stand-up comedy show called The Remix. Basically it\u2019s a greatest hits from the half dozen or so past routines since the 1990s that have made Izzard one of the greatest British stand-up comics ever.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s soon clear that even gently ribbing Izzard that The Remix is her taking it easy, when she looms large on the Zoom screen from London, sporting a blonde ponytail of equestrian proportions and lipstick freshly applied, isn\u2019t going to work.<\/p>\n

From experience, this writer knows that any Izzard interview will include tangents mostly about Izzard thoroughly explaining things. A discussion on Hamlet becomes a small Ted Talk about the history of pre-Shakespeare British theatre since the Romans. Sometimes, you can wonder if Izzard is auditioning to be a slightly wonky Wikipedia AI voice reader who\u2019s in a bit of a rush to get to the interesting bit.<\/p>\n

So yes, Izzard has some thorough explanations behind The Remix and the 35 years of previous shows she\u2019s pulling from.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause, well, you know bands, if they don\u2019t come and do some of the golden classics then people are really pissed off. Now, I don\u2019t know how much you know about the history of performance comedy \u2026\u201d and she\u2019s off, explaining that once upon a time doing weekly television variations on the same old thing was a UK comedy tradition. And that when she and other left-field comics of her generation came along and started improvising, that changed everything.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can confidently say I was at the vanguard, because I started improvising and putting stuff in \u2026 but then it changed into having to constantly have different shows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initially, the comedian\u2019s Los Angeles agent had suggested reviving one of the old shows. Maybe 2000\u2019s Dressed to Kill, which, when recorded for an HBO special, won Izzard an Emmy ahead of Cher, Billy Crystal and Chris Rock.<\/p>\n

Even with all the noise going on, it\u2019s a better place. I can exist, I go out. No one batted an eyelid today as I walked around. <\/p>\n

Eddie Izzard<\/p>\n

Izzard opted for a \u201cremix\u201d, where past routines could be brought back then mucked about with and improvised upon. Plus the gender fluid comedian has remixed herself a few times over those decades. But fans who remember Izzard in long trousers should get plenty of nostalgia, with a twist.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I take classics like Death Star Canteen and if you know it you\u2019ll be going, \u2018Yeah, yeah, that doesn\u2019t go there normally. Who\u2019s that? What\u2019s Daphne du Maurier doing in there?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

So, as well as revisiting Darth, or as Izzard fans know him \u201cJeff\u201d Vader, and his exasperation at his work cafe, the show will also contain traces of Izzard\u2019s biblical reinterpretations, beekeeping, the death of Caesar, jazz chickens and more. <\/p>\n

But in an age when all of the originals are available to people on YouTube, does that make it harder? <\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter, because that\u2019s what the remix gives me \u2026 it\u2019s like when Madonna did that thing on Like a Virgin, which she did like a German torch song.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2014, Izzard attended seven nights of the final 10-night farewell season performed by Monty Python, the troupe to which she\u2019s often been named a comedic heir apparent. She remembers going backstage afterwards and reassuring the likes of John Cleese and Michael Palin that it was actually great when, during classic sketches, they fluffed lines and ad-libbed. \u201cI was trying to get a message through to them that you can remix.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Python last bow wasn\u2019t an influence. \u201cI mean, I love Python. They can do no wrong for me, but that didn\u2019t affect quite what this is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of Izzard\u2019s stage time in the past year has been devoted to Hamlet in an adaptation written by her brother Mark, who earlier wrote his sibling a solo version \u2013 with a relatively modest 19 characters \u2013 of Great Expectations. \u201cHe\u2019s the real academic of the family.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to Izzard doing the Shakespeare play, you have to ask, what\u2019s better, her Hamlet or her Ophelia?<\/p>\n

\"TakeTake a bow: Eddie Izzard with director Selina Cadell for the opening night of Great Expectations. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cMy Ophelia is getting really good,\u201d Izzard says with a smile, before picking up the ball and running with it for some distance.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone wants their Hamlet to be good, but I\u2019m coming to the table with such a weird training it\u2019s got to be different in some way.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving been through years of street performing and years of stand-up, I have talked to the audience for so many hours \u2013 that\u2019s going to bring something weird to the soliloquy. But I\u2019m just not bothered up there. I\u2019m really not bothered \u2026 I live it up there. I try and find how I can push it, make it better, pull it, twist it. I just feel so at ease playing Hamlet, which is a bit odd.\u201d<\/p>\n

Considering the material?<\/p>\n

\u201cConsidering all the pressure of the people having played it, and they played it with this voice,\u201d she says in mock Shakespearean tones. \u201cBut I\u2019m not, I\u2019m coming to it with this. My training is probably very similar to the training of Shakespeare\u2019s actors. And Shakespeare didn\u2019t know he was Shakespeare. The actors didn\u2019t know he was Shakespeare. So this thing should be immediate, it should be visceral and it should not be this old staid thing that the elitists want, so we pushed right against that and we went for our version.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edited highlights from the following Izzard guest lecture on Hamlet, which the interview soon turns into, also include Izzard\u2019s dissection of why Shakespeare allowed Norwegian prince Fortinbras and his army to march through Denmark on the way to Poland; the influence of ancient Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus in why Shakespeare had Hamlet visit England; whether the first actors to play it might have contributed to the subsequent versions of the play; and its various flaws.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything about drama is show, not tell, and such a lot of Hamlet is tell, not show. \u2018Horatio, let me tell you what happened on that boat.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Her final Hamlet performance for the year will be in her childhood hometown of Bexhill-on-Sea. The town on the Sussex coast was also the location for her 2020 movie Three Minutes to Midnight, the film she wrote and starred in set at a real local boarding school for the daughters of high-ranking Nazis on the eve of World War II. The movie didn\u2019t do very well. \u201cIt didn\u2019t end quite how I wanted it. They were probably a bit more Nazi than we made them, these young women.\u201d<\/p>\n

After her Remix shows in NZ, she promises she\u2019ll return with Hamlet at some stage. Izzard has been here quite a few times before.<\/p>\n

The late Georgina Beyer showed her around Parliament once \u2013 \u201cshe was great\u201d \u2013 encouraging Izzard\u2019s eventual ambition of becoming a UK Labour Party MP. She tried to become a candidate in 2022 and 2023 and wasn\u2019t selected either time. She remains philosophical.<\/p>\n

I live it up there. I try and find how I can push it, make it better, pull it, twist it. I just feel so at ease playing Hamlet. <\/p>\n

Eddie Izzard<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you study Lincoln, he pushed and pushed and pushed and it took some time to take off. I\u2019ll just keep pushing until I get in, so it\u2019s all good. But I\u2019m not quite there yet. Some transphobic people really want to stop a trans person getting into Parliament, but it\u2019ll happen. It doesn\u2019t have to be me. There were once no gay MPs, no lesbian MPs, no women MPs \u2013 you\u2019ve just got to go through that place and then move on. But I\u2019m relentless, so that\u2019s not a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last January marked 40 years since Izzard came out as trans, a celebration marked by tea and scones. In 2020, she declared she would be permanently in \u201cgirl mode\u201d from now on and took on the name Suzy in 2023, but she\u2019s relaxed about being called Eddie \u2013 and having it on the posters.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m very proud of that, and now it\u2019s got into this kind of a bit of a shouty thing. But when I came out it was completely silent \u2013 tumbleweeds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, with her political ambitions, does she find herself in a culture wars crossfire? \u201cThey\u2019re not culture wars, they\u2019re culture debates, culture disagreements \u2026 people can get hot under the collar about it but it\u2019s not a war. It\u2019s a time that we have to go through, as with marriage equality.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid I think it would get to this place? No, I couldn\u2019t imagine where it would get to. I thought it would get to a better place. Even with all the noise going on it\u2019s a better place. I can exist, I go out. No one batted an eyelid today as I walked around.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people coming out as trans or LGBTQI+, it\u2019s still not particularly easy but it\u2019s definitely better than it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

That anniversary and the career retrospective have both given Izzard, 63, some pause for thought. \u201cI am of a more senior age than I was once and when I was younger I was always thinking I could get things going really early, and that didn\u2019t happen for me. So things came to me later in the fine wine style of career. I\u2019m okay with that.\u201d <\/p>\n

Tour dates: Isaac Theatre Royal, Christchurch November 21; Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington November 24; The Civic, Auckland, November 26.<\/p>\n

Save<\/a>Share this article<\/p>\n

Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.<\/p>\n

Copy LinkEmailFacebookTwitter\/XLinkedInReddit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s possibly unreasonable teasing Eddie \u2013 now Suzy, but either is fine \u2013 Izzard about laziness. After all…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[24041,1443,74,682,430,1977,3682,5972,4731,24392,84533,84537,156,6204,302,84534,685,9933,63033,84486,111,139,69,1118,90,6029,3111,2204,3366,20863,84538,36181,84536,107,84535,102,1530],"class_list":["post-119927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-24041","tag-about","tag-after","tag-being","tag-celebrities","tag-charity","tag-comedy","tag-day","tag-days","tag-each","tag-eddie","tag-either","tag-entertainment","tag-fine","tag-its","tag-izzard","tag-last","tag-later","tag-laziness","tag-marathons","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-on","tag-once","tag-out","tag-possibly","tag-queen","tag-she","tag-standup","tag-suzy","tag-teasing","tag-then","tag-unreasonable","tag-with","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}