Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Eddie Izzard is one of Britain’s most loved comedians. He is also one of those exceptional people on the circuit that is loved just as much for his endeavours away from the stage as he is on it. From running marathons, to sending out a better image of the U.K. with his tolerance and acceptance of different cultures and his brave decision to come out as an action transvestite has only endeared him more to the public.
His latest tour, Force Majeure, continues this great theme of his life as he stands, almost majestically, on stage at the Echo Arena and the 1960s style graphics on the screen fade away, the audience has no idea what to expect or where Eddie will go off to in search of the surreal. It may be fair to suggest that Eddie doesn’t exactly know either as one sound from the audience can send him careering down a street with no brakes and only the mental agility that he owns to get him back at some point to the superb tale he is weaving.
Nothing is ever out of reach, for the world is a playground awash with the surreal and dreamlike. For those that like a perfectly structured world, ones in which the world makes sense at every given structure then before it goes any further it would be better to get off the planet very soon, for the more surreal the world gets, the funnier it becomes and the more Eddie Izzard will find a way to attack and prick its finely polished ego. From the Romans, basically fascist plumbers who couldn’t get enough of building aqueducts, through to the Olympics and the modern sport of Dressage, in which horses are taught to ballet and be partners in crime, to Acts of God in which nothing nice can ever be attributed to an Act of God, not even free Jammy Dodgers for the under-fives. There’s also the question of animal over human fitness, think of a cheetah with a hamstring problem!
Even his own life is not out of bounds, his stories of growing up with his step mother who was in the S.A.S. and who can be seen to inspire his decision to want to be the same when older, is only tempered by his love of make-up, wanting to speak French and chat up girls, everyday lad things apparently.
Eddie Izzard is the Salvador Dali of the comedy world; a huge colossus of the surreal wrapped up in beautiful absurdity and finished off with a coat of male elegance and further untapped comedic resources. There are those that don’t get the joke or nuance, they really don’t know what they are missing and for all those that do get Mr. Izzard and love him for all that he has achieved in and out of comedy, nights such as this are to be savoured time and time again.
A master of surrealist thought? The chicken certainly thinks so.
Ian D. Hall