Eddie Izzard
Biography-Eddie Izzard
Edward John “Eddie” Izzard (born 7 February 1962) is a two-time Emmy winning British stand-up comedian and actor.His comedy style is expressed in rambling, whimsical monologue and self-referential pantomime. Izzard’s works include standup sets Definite Article, Dress to Kill and a starring role in the television series The Riches as Wayne Malloy. He is also known for his transvestism.
His stand-up work brought him British Comedy Awards in 1993 (for Live at the Ambassadors), a part in “Filth” which was a stand up presentation by left-wing sympathetic comedians in aid of raising money for the Terence Higgins Trust in 1994, and 1996 (for Definite Article). After the British leg of the tour, he took Definite Article to major cities outside the UK including a successful stint in New York City. However, his U.S. breakthrough did not really come until 1999, when Dress to Kill was shown on the American television channel HBO, about a year or so after he performed the show on tour in the U.S., the U.K. and France (that same year, he played a supporting role in the movie Mystery Men). Suddenly, America was aware of Izzard, and the show went on to earn him two Emmy Awards in 2000 (for performance and writing). However, he only rarely performs his stand-up act on television, as he says it uses up material at too high a rate whereas stage material can be continually re-used in front of different audiences for several months.
In 2005, Izzard provided the voiceover (again, in his unique ‘rambling’ style) for the British government’s series of television advertisements promoting recycling. The tagline of the ads was “Recycle. The possibilities are endless!”
In January 2006, the U.S. television network FX announced the production of a new drama series called The Riches (formerly Low Life). Izzard and British actress Minnie Driver star as a married couple, Wayne and Dahlia Malloy, who have been part of a caravan of con-artist Irish travellers swindling their way across the U.S. with their children. After finding another family killed in a car accident, the Malloys assume their identities and start a new life as law-abiding suburbanites in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The youngest son has shown a preference for wearing girls’ clothing, leading to some speculation that the role was based upon Izzard’s experiences. Izzard has stated in several interviews that the character of Sam had been given transvestite tendencies long before he was cast as Wayne Malloy, but he has contributed his perspective to keep the character believable.
Izzard also performed with Scottish musician Midge Ure at Live8 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He played the piano accompaniment for the song “Vienna“.
Izzard’s style is heavily influenced by Monty Python, especially in his use of a stream-of-consciousness delivery that jumps between topics as he free associates on stage. He does not generally work from a script, owing to his dyslexia. Instead, he interrupts himself with new joke ideas, the characters he portrays turn into other characters, and he nonchalantly leaps from historical analysis to musings about household appliances. This often results in brief pauses in the routine which he fills with ’so, yeah,’ and other verbal tics that have become his trademarks. Thinking aloud is also part of Izzard’s ongoing attempt to make the process of writing the show itself part of the humour. As he put it in a 2004 interview with The Guardian, “It’s the oral tradition. Human beings have been doing it for thousands of years”. He frequently notes the reaction to a joke midstream by miming writing on his hand (”should be funnier” or “lost them there”), asks the audience questions, and verbally engages with hecklers.
Among Izzard’s comic talents are mimicry and mime. He portrays God as a bumbling authority figure using the voice of James Mason, and John F. Kennedy and Noah as Sean Connery, impersonations of whom appear in all of his performances. Izzard also imitates activities such as sawing wood, vacuuming, and mowing the lawn, anthropomorphizing the machines with accents and personalities. Successful impressions, such as his Scottish clarinet teacher, Mrs. Badcrumble, become running gags which recur in different shows. He tackles topics both contemporary and historic, including frequent re-imaginings of historical events which result in scenes like ‘Cake or Death: Church of England runs the Inquisition,’ or ‘Jesus Ministers to the Dinosaurs.
In 2008, in his Stripped tour, Izzard began using Wikipedia itself as part of his stand-up act, reading from a live copy of an article (via an iPhone) and mocking Wikipedia’s self-referential editorial style. To date, he has read from a variety of different articles.
Although much of his humour deals with sensitive issues, with special emphasis on religion, it has generally not been intended as mean-spirited or rude. Izzard, however, took a different tone in 2008’s “Stripped” tour. Professing that he had learned he was an atheist, he explains that he doesn’t like the word “worship” because he doesn’t see why anyone would want to worship someone who had “fucked the whole thing up from the beginning.” The show’s theme was an apologetic, humorous presentation on why one may feel that there is no God.
Traditionally, Izzard has focused on the creative possibilities of thinking through absurd situations in real time. He also turns much of the attention on himself and his personality, including his cross-dressing (”it is my manifest destiny to wear a dress on all seven continents”). Contemporary pop culture (Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc.), is also a frequent subject, brought up both to critique its weaknesses and to enhance his anecdotes.
His bent towards the surreal even went so far as to produce a sitcom called Cows in 1997 for Channel 4, a live action comedy with actors dressed in cowsuits.
He is known for making frequent references to jam, badgers and monkeys.-Wiki
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