Perhaps the reason that Eddie Izzard’s comedy is so popular these days is that he so successfully “holds the mirror up to nature” as Shakespeare said and through his great wit and wisdom gives us a look at ourselves, allowing us to recognize our faults and foibles and laugh.
Izzard asked one of his mentors, Robin Williams if he believed Americans would like his comedy. Williams replied “The intelligent ones will”.
Eddie Izzard's Biographical Information
Edward John Izzard was born to British parents in Yemen in 1962. According to his biography on his web page, his father and mother met there. She was a nurse and his father worked as a clerk for British Petroleum. In 1963, just as a revolution was brewing, he and his family moved to Northern Ireland. In 1967 as his father was moving up in British Petroleum, they moved to Wales.
Eddie Izzard turned to entertaining because like great performers like Richard Pryor, Orson Wells and Madonna, whose parents died or deserted them early in their lives, Izzard explained, it is a dysfunctional family situation that makes one crave the love one never received at home. He says on his website he sees his audience as a surrogate affection machine.
And it was not just the loss of his mother at the age of six that caused him to struggle through his childhood. School was not easy for Eddie either as he suffers from dyslexia. Plus at an early age, he realized he enjoyed wearing makeup and women’s clothing. Being a transvestite was a secret he kept from his family until his twenties.
As he has mentioned in many interviews, his first love was drama and he has shown his remarkable acting talent in movies such as The Cat’s Meow, Valkyrie and the television drama The Riches.
But it is in his comedy where we see his great wit emerge as the issues of his childhood forged him into the superstar he is today, selling out venues like Wembley Stadium in 2009 and Madison Square Garden early in 2010.
Izzard began his career as a busker in Covent Gardens, England. When he began to do stand up, he realized he needed to find a niche. He realized that no one at that time was doing comedy about history. So he began reading up on it and using it in his routines. It is through the subject of history that we see not just his brand of comic wisdom which as his tour program says “…pricks the balloon of conscience, encouraging us to look behind, beyond, and within. Ultimately he invites us to believe – in spite of our fear, in spite of our madness and in spite of our bloody history”
Historical Comedy
For example, in his comedy show “Dress To Kill” in 1998, he talked about some of history's mass murdering dictators. “Stalin,” Izzard says “killed many million, died in his bed…. Pol Pot killed one point seven million Cambodians; died under house arrest age seventy-two… and the reason we let them get away with it is because they killed their own people and we’re sort of fine with that… ‘oh help yourself, we’ve been trying to kill you for ages. So if you kill your own people – right on…’ Hitler killed the people next door… after a few years we won’t stand for that!”
“…And Germany and Japan, they do seem to have a natural instinct in a very generalized way for organization and being military, but, you know, there's a very strong Green Party there now, kids with beards, it's getting okay, and I just think Japan and Germany should be the peacekeepers of the world. They should be parachuted in; whenever something breaks out, parachute Germans and Japanese in. They’ll go, "Look, we've done this before, we've done the killing. Hello! Take it from us, just chill out!" And then, they’d organize peace really quickly. "All right, peace, peace, peace, peace is organized!” It could be brilliant if they could do that. That's their destiny, man! Yeah.”
Religious Comedy
Possibly Izzard’s favorite topic is religion. It is on this topic where his savvy wit is the most poignant. In his “Stripped” tour of 2008, he says he used to be an agnostic but now he is an atheist. He says he believes in spirituality and in us. But not God. For if God exists he hypothesizes, why didn’t He simply flick Hitler’s head off? Why didn’t He intervene? Instead, Izzard says, “He just asks people to mumble ridiculously positive things about Him on Sundays in the coldest buildings you can find.”
Izzard looks at the Bible with discernment and logic from which comes the comedy. For example, he said “There’s a huge hole in the whole flood drama, because anything that could float or swim got away scott free, and it was the idea to wipe out everything. (In the Bible) He didn’t say ‘I will kill everything except the floating ones and the swimming ones who will get out due to a loophole.’” For that reason, he says after the flood, there should have been a period when ducks ruled the world.
Eddie Izzard’s life and great comedic and dramatic talents will be showcased in the documentary about his life called “Believe” will be released on DVD in early March.
From an interview in The Independent; People Section 5/23/04
From an interview with Robin Williams on “Believe”
From Eddie Izzard's website www.EddieIzzard.com
From Eddie Izzard Biography on Wikipedia
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