The Eddie Izzard Story

[23 Daves]

I came on here hoping that there would be some kind of thread about this already, but as there's not, you'll have to make do with my feeble opening post...

I walked away from this thinking it was a very strange documentary indeed, mostly conceived to hammer home certain positive aspects of Izzard's personality which we were already subjected to during the hype from the nineties (He improvises! He takes risks! He does stand-up sets in other languages! We knew all this already!) The documentary seemed positioned to re-establish him in the marketplace as an artist rather than act as a conventional piece of docu-journalism.  It nudged at our brains to remember how great he was as if he'd recently died, having all the gushing awe of an obit column.

For all that, there is something about Izzard's personality which is easily admirable in itself, and his attitude to life and performance is quaintly similar to that of somebody like Brian Blessed if you want to pick an unlikely and physically dis-similar figure - seemingly deluded to the point of illness but succeeding nonetheless.  I found it impossible not to watch the thing in awe at the sheer scale of his early ambition and perseverance, reminding myself that comedians - perhaps more than anyone - are amazingly bloody-minded and deluded, ploughing on through all the shit gigs and dis-spiriting experiences.  He came across as likeable, intelligent and admirably optimistic, wearing his "grab life by the throat" attitude on his sleeve.

Then, of course, there was a long lingering shot of him in floods of tears near the end, saying the only reason he probably did all this is because his mother died when he was seven.  Which, as the man himself might say, finished the whole thing on a bit of an "Oh", and made me realise why he'll never be a motivational speaker if nothing else.

What did the rest of you get out of this?  And whilst I'm sure we've had an Izzard thread already in the dim and distant past, what thoughts do you have on his material?  Last night, I did realise that even some of his supposed career highlights don't really stand up, but there's a lot of gold there as well.  It must be at least eight years now since I last sat down and watched an Izzard show from start to finish.  A friend of mine borrowed my Izzard VHS tapes a long time ago and I never got around to picking them up from him before I moved back to London.   

[Bog Dadley]

I agree - a strange one. The whole premise of the thing seemed flawed to me – that he's somehow had to fight his way back from the career low of being 'savaged' by Anne Robinson on Watchdog. It says it all that I don't even remember that 'scandal'. Fairly flimsy justification for an extended 'puff-piece', particularly when he's acknowledged that the tragic loss of his Mother drives everything he does. There's your back-story, right there, surely? 

On the whole, it re-affirmed my general affection for the man (particularly his grim determination to tackle challenges that scare him), but did nothing to sway my thorough disinterest in his act. I remain genuinely baffled as to why outwardly sensible people hail him as a comedy genius. 

[23 Daves]

I like his material, I just don't agree with the 'genius' tag.  There was a slight rewrite of history in the documentary as well, as they seemed to claim he was a surrealist breath of fresh air amidst a politically correct comedy scene - ignoring, of course, Vic and Bob, Harry Hill and countless other lesser names who were also dabbling in that area, and from my perspective with more success.  Even Norman Lovett's material wasn't a million miles away from Izzard's ("You'd never catch a flying fish rolling their own" could have come straight from Izzard's mouth, it's just the delivery that's different).  So that's balls.

He is a fucking good performer, though, and I think the energy and eccentricity he brings to performances causes a lot of people to overlook the fact that his material isn't actually that original or ground-breaking.  It's sold to the audience exceptionally well, it's an easily likable version of surreal comedy, it invites you to join in with the silliness rather than set itself up in an alienating art school or self-consciously cultish way.  I don't find it difficult to understand how he got his reputation, whereas obviously somebody like MacIntyre just baffles the hell out of me. 

[MissInformed]

I didn't see all of it, but was staggered by the whole Watchdog shenanigans  - WTF???

[23 Daves]

I didn't see all of it, but was staggered by the whole Watchdog shenanigans  - WTF???

I actually remember them, and I'm sure I didn't dream this, but I think Watchdog did an expose on how often Peter Kay recycles his material across DVDs as well - which is totally fair enough.

I think too big a deal was made out of Izzard's case, but I don't remember it as being more than a quick five minute feature, presumably after a few fans had complained about his supposed new material actually being largely recycled stuff. 

[The Region Legion]

It would be no exaggeration to say that as a boy of 10/11 who caught Unrepeatable on Channel 4 in around 1995/1996, he became something of an idol to me, and while I never quite became as flamboyant, I respected his "I'm a transvestite, so what" attitude, and found his standup endlessly hilarious. My original copy of Definite Article with the felt cover is basically unwatchable, as is his first, Live At The Ambassadors.

This idolatry continued all the way to Dress To Kill in 1998, after which he sort of disappeared and as a result I moved on. When Circle came out in 2002, I'm pretty sure I didn't buy it right off, but once I did I didn't think it was significantly worse than his other material. The year later though, I got Sexie for Christmas. Dear god...

I mean where do you start? Well, in the first place it wasn't funny. Not even briefly. He comes out on stage in a full corset looking not like a transvestite, but as a sad drag queen. He then spends 20 minutes going on about how this corset gives him breasts, as if his dressing in this manner is now the act, whereas before it had been very specifically anything but. I don't even remember the rest now, I have blanked it from my mind, and I'm fairly certain I never finished the thing before selling it off on eBay, sickened by its presence in my house.

Izzard must have known it was shit too because that was it from him until 2009's Stripped which was a mild improvement but still didn't recapture my long lost love. Recently I rewatched 1997's Glorious with a couple of friends and discovered that actually it wasn't all that great either.

As a "first stand up comedian" at a young age, Izzard was the perfect blend of cod-intellectualism, immaturity and assumption-challenging that I needed, and I think that goes for a great number of people. I think he got extremely lucky to get caught on that final gasp of "comedy is the new rock & roll" and that perhaps that enormous, out-of-proportion groundswell of support for his work (Izzard Night? Monty Python in Aspen?) made him a little lazy, so that while we've all moved on, he expects the same stuff to work for him, having not developed or grown as a performer at all since about 1994.

As for Believe - I mean, it's just 10 years too late isn't it? Who honestly cares now? Instead of doing a vanity documentary about himself trying to talk us into liking him again, he could have gone on tour round the UK workshopping new material like a proper comedian. 10 gigs here and there every 5 years between shit US drama series aren't going to cut it. He must have been properly pissed off when Hugh Laurie just turned up and became a household name overnight.

[Bog Dadley]

I think too big a deal was made out of Izzard's case, but I don't remember it as being more than a quick five minute feature, presumably after a few fans had complained about his supposed new material actually being largely recycled stuff.

The documentary had footage of a Watchdog spy being despatched to watch one of Izzard's shows, complete with a joke check-list to monitor the volume of re-cycling. I did laugh at that. Particularly as there were also shots of die-hard fans, at gigs, wearing t-shirts emblazoned with celebrated Izzard-isms.

[Chris Chopping]

I think my experience was probably similar to The Region Legion. Discovered him at an impressionable age and he became my stand up god. Managed to get my cousins and grandparents on my dad's side hooked too, right up until the Christmas when I was given Circle and three generations of us sat around not laughing.

[Braintree]

I think the issue I have with Izzard, though I quite fancy him and find him likeable, is that it feels like stand up was a means to an acting end. An end that hasn't paid off. I think everyone but Izzard sees him primarily as a stand up, who occasionally does some acting. Crucially he isn't a particularly strong actor.

Watchdog complaints aside, he lost a lot of fans and respect with that whole 'Circle' fuck up. His excuse at the time was ridiculous "I create new material as I go along" well of course you do but that is what performing at new material nights or work in progress shows are for (something he realised by the time of Sexie) you don't try out new material at stadium shows, to audiences who have seen your old material.

It is a credit to Izzard that the backlash didn't begin until 2003. I suspect if he was starting out now he wouldn't stand a chance.

[Mark X]

The whole documentary was a little but undone by his "remarkable comeback with an entirely new set" being Sexie, generally regarded as his weakest show by some margin. Aside from that though, I found it pretty enjoyable stuff. With shows like Live At The Ambassador's and Unrepeatable, I'd always kind of assumed Izzard had hit the ground running, having always put on shows of that standard to steadily growing audiences, but his early Edinburgh performances seemed like your average smug university revue-fare. It reminded me a little of that clip from BobKnocks where Harry Enfield and A. N. Other did impersonations of old Prime Ministers in front of an largely unimpressed audience. It was great to see so much of his pre-fame years, not to mention lots of proof that Eddie Izzard is pretty much impossible to dislike as a human being. And I really liked Circle, though admittedly I haven't watched it for years.

The documentary itself was a bit of a mess, though. The chronology was all over the place - unless I'm mistaken, it was suggested that The Riches came along in his pre-Sexie hiatus, when it actually appeared years after everything else in the documentary. Scenes being introduced via use of a CGI-cutout-animation-with-wobbly-head-photo-of-subject-in-front-of-location badly needs to fuck off in such documentaries about comedy (really, is there actually legislation in place that means everyone has to use that device?). And after it all, post-credits, a few photos from Eddie's Sport Relief marathons blu-tacked on, which might well have led anyone tuning in late to think it had been an obituary. Indeed, with all the footage of Eddie shot for the documentary being from the years up to 2003, why is it only being seen now? Were they waiting for everyone to forget what a disappointment Sexie turned out to be? It does seem a bit silly that his much longer break from stand-up, between Sexie and Stripped, was completely ignored.

Mind you, I did like that the poster in the background for the interviews with Eddie's agent was for The Mark Radcliffe Show.

[23 Daves]

As for Believe - I mean, it's just 10 years too late isn't it? Who honestly cares now? Instead of doing a vanity documentary about himself trying to talk us into liking him again, he could have gone on tour round the UK workshopping new material like a proper comedian. 10 gigs here and there every 5 years between shit US drama series aren't going to cut it. He must have been properly pissed off when Hugh Laurie just turned up and became a household name overnight.

I got the impression the documentary encouraged us to think that he had every right to try his hand at becoming a great actor as he did becoming a great comedian, that such life challenges were all part of his characteristics.  However, I think he's just returning to his original ambitions, and comedy ended up being a convenient way in for him (as Braintree says above).  I don't think him trying to get parts in an American evening drama is on quite the same scale as learning how to do a stand-up set in another language in a country where stand-up comedy doesn't really have an audience.  That's on a par with John Lydon claiming doing a butter advert is up there with the original work of the Sex Pistols.

Good on him for following him whims, I suppose, and for developing the safety net to do so - but his acting career is not a journey of his I'm terribly interested in. 

As for whether people who use comedy as a way into an acting career have any right to do so or not, I'm not too bothered if the comedy actually works well.  It's only when somebody is so obviously chancing it that I use it as a stick to beat them with, and I don't think this really applies to Izzard.   

[Ronnie the Raincoat]

I watched it last year-- it succeeded in almost putting me entirely off him.  He has a huge ego.  It was so aggrandising that it was distasteful.

[Jake Thingray]

smug university revue-fare. It reminded me a little of that clip from BobKnocks where Harry Enfield and A. N. Other did impersonations of old Prime Ministers in front of an largely unimpressed audience.

If you mean The Adventures Of Dusty And Dick, the show was not BOB SAYS OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS, but THE FAME GAME.

Does Izzard still talk in that ridiculous fake mid-Atlantic accent, that ruined the Python documentary on BBC2 in 1999 ("man!")?

[kidsick5000]

Good on him for following him whims, I suppose, and for developing the safety net to do so - but his acting career is not a journey of his I'm terribly interested in.   

he's a bit of a jonah when it comes to films.
I'm sure it's not down to him, but there's a fair few films that he's been in that have tanked.

This isn't to join in the beating. I like some of his stand up, admittedly not so much lately, but where films are concerned his association with bombs is almost supernatural

[Mark X]

If you mean The Adventures Of Dusty And Dick, the show was not BOB SAYS OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS, but THE FAME GAME.

That does explain why my Google search for "Harry Enfield opportunity knocks" didn't quite work out.

[Jake Thingray]

Thought all the Goodies fans on here would have mentioned it, as it was co-presented by Tim Brooke-Taylor. Enfield's cohort now writes SKINS or something.

[turnstyle]

I've watched the first half of this.

What period does this cover? I got the impression that it went up to Sexie, billing that tour as his 'comeback' tour, but frankly, he was still scraping the barrel then. Does it cover his 3 million marathons in 3 hours?

I remember when I first saw Glorious, back in the mid-90's. I could barely breathe I was laughing so much, and I emerged after the two hours, red faced and tears of laughter wetting my young cheeks. I was a huge fan, right up until Circle, which was that horrible moment when your favourite band puts out it's first bad album, and you cling onto all hope that it was just a mis-step. Sadly not with Eddie.

I have found the documentry interesting so far, certainly. I'm a sucker for old footage of comedians, before they made it. I had no idea he had his own club, and the film of him street performing, and in plays has been very entertaining.

I don't know, as other whores have touched on, whether Eddie has got worse, or I've just grown up. When I watch Noel Fielding going on about weasels in frocks in speedboats these days, it really boils my piss, but how was some of Eddie's material any different? What makes me quoting 'I'm covered in bees!!!' in 1997 and finding it hilarious, any different to the kids these days banging on about a 'mangina'?

All told, I find this depressing. So....yeah.

[Jemble Fred]

Well it was ten or twenty years earlier, for a start. Fielding was laughing along with you at the time, nudging his mates in the common room and saying "I can do all that, you know! Listen – OTTERS!"

You can't blame Eddie for that. As another lapsed-mega-fan, I made my peace with Izzard a while ago. I've not seen this documentary yet, but even though I'll never regain the awe of his work I had as a teenager, I find him too admirable all round to keep a firm grip on the cudgel.

[turnstyle]

Well it was ten or twenty years earlier, for a start. Fielding was laughing along with you at the time, nudging his mates in the common room and saying "I can do all that, you know! Listen – OTTERS!"

Well yes, I agree with this to a degree, but when Eddie was doing this stuff in the mid 90's, it could be argued that it had been done before by the Pythons and the Goons (although not quite to the same degree, I admit).

The older I get, the more I believe that comedy is very much 'of the moment'. There's that line about true comedy being timeless, but I've never bought that.

To the teenage Noel Fielding fan, his humour is year zero. They probably don't know, or care what has gone before. When I find myself saying 'It's been done before', I feel like some Radiohead fans Dad, harping on about how their just ripping off Pink Floyd. I'll probably spend the rest of my days hanging around schools, thrusting old VHS copies of Glorious into kids hands, saying 'That's real comedy, right there, none of your mod wolves bollocks here son'.

[Jemble Fred]

No, I can't agree with that, not all generations are equal – there is without question a verifiable level of intelligence and sheer quality to Eddie's work which puts it head and shoulders above the Mighty Boosh – and indeed oceans of difference between Izzard and Python, and Python and the Goons (and The Goons and Edward Lear and lewis Carroll, if you want to take it that far). If some Fielding fan wanted to argue the toss about whether his work was on a par with Izzard's, you could very easily point out objectively superior approaches to comedy and surreal humour in the elder comic's work. Izzard's 'badger playing a trumpet' flourishes are just a part of a whole host of different styles of stand-up comedy in his set. All Fielding has done, essentially, is focus on these whimsical flourishes and, largely, made a career out of them.

You could do that. But the Boosh fan may have wandered off by the time you get to the salient points, so best to just have a cup of tea and ignore them. The point is, it's wrong to look back on Izzard's 90s work and your younger self and equate it exactly with what's around today, as if Izzard's whole career was a fluke and you were too stupid to know better at the time. For a period there, Izzard was a master of strange stand-up comedy, and his best work still holds up today. It's not about 'growing up', it is about Izzard's mojo going walkies since 'Circle'.

[23 Daves]

At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, I'd also add that Izzard is a very good, incredibly charismatic performer, whereas Fielding has shit delivery and merely looks like a carbon-copy hipster.  Fielding has confidence in spades, but it's an idle, "I've turned up, and that's enough" cool-kid-at-school kind of confidence against Izzard's sheer force of personality.

I'd also argue that the Boosh drew more from Vic and Bob and early psychedelic albums than they ever did from Izzard.  Not that their rips of Reeves and Mortimer or "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" were anything other than lazy ones.