COMEDY LIVE: EDDIE IZZARD – Perth, 5 March, 2019

Shane | 15 March 2019 | Reply

COMEDY LIVE: EDDIE IZZARD – Perth, 5 March, 2019
Perth Concert Hall, Perth, Western Australia
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar

To say Eddie Izzard is a high achiever almost feels like short-changing the high profile, transgender star. He’s an actor, stand-up comedian, multi-linguist performer, activist, charity icon and soon-to-be politician, running for British parliament after the end of this current world tour.

Izzard is just what global politics needs right now – a scathingly intelligent, hilariously woke and vital-thinking person who might just have the power to start a new world political movement and help finally push the old world order out to pasture where they belong.

But first, he has a show to do, and his rapid-fire, often scatological hilarity keeps the audience in stitches throughout.

It would be fascinating to compare his show from one night to the next – he bounces from subject to subject seemingly on the spur of the moment, to the point that it feels like he’s improvising wildly. How much of the show is pre-written, perhaps only Izzard knows for sure. He’s certainly never stuck for words, though, and his people are on board from the moment he strides out in stiletto boots, skirt and leather jacket (and boobs, it should be noted, though we’re unsure if they are his own or padding) and love the ride no matter what he throws at them.

But herein lies the rub. We’ve seen Eddie Izzard before, and whilst his hilarity is undeniable, this time round the ride the show seems a bit too haphazard, like he’s reaching a bit too far without a safety net. “How much crap can I say?” he asks himself at one point, and we’re a little embarrassed that we were thinking much the same.

Don’t get me wrong – laughs were had, but rather than leaving the room with aching sides, a lot of the material was enough to engender a broad grin rather than a belly laugh.

Izzard’s delivery owes much to The Goons and Monty Python, of course, and there is ample absurdity as his discourse runs through the history of the world, the ridiculousness of religion, his triumph of mind over flesh in running 27 marathons in 27 days, monkeys learning to talk, barking dogs, superheroes, Trump, Lord Of The Rings and culminating, no less, in his theory of the universe.

This show won’t be remembered as Izzard’s best work – it feels too much like it’s being made up on the spot for that, and there’s a little too much rambling here and there – but in a way that is his own fault. The man is funny and has set the bar for himself so high that few can reach it – sometimes not even himself. Suffice to say that no-one went home without a smile.