Eddie Izzard

Eddie can riff on a variety of topics. Some of my favorites include: the Queen (annus horribilis); the Bible (Sean Connery as Noah and James Mason as God); the NRA (Charlton Heston's house being invaded by monkeys with guns); Doctor Who and the daleks (death or plumbing) and Star Wars (Death Star Canteen; It's a death star. It does death.)

About this lens: If something is current I'll add it at the top of the page. If I'm adding older stuff I'll probably stick it in where it seems to fit. It's worth your while to scroll down the entire page every once in a while.

I met Eddie Izzard in 1993 when I was working the Vancouver International Comedy Festival. Eddie performed five nights at the Waterfront Theatre as part of the festival. I was lucky enough to see his show twice and I have been a big fan ever since.

For a month before the festival people were coming into the office to buy tickets for Eddie's show. At that point, I had never heard of him so people tried to explain: "He's a British transvestite." They said. I had just moved into Vancouver's "gay" neighborhood and seen my first drag queen so I thought transvestites were the same thing. Do not worry, I know better now.

One day this nice looking man came into the office and asked to see the festival producer. I went and got him and he said, "Hi Eddie!" I was not sure what to think. Looking closely I noticed the man had nail polish and his shirt could have been called a blouse. He was also wearing boots with heels but I would not have called them feminine.

Over the next week, I got a chance to speak to Eddie a few times. He was always polite and soft spoken. The first thing I noticed about him was his intelligence (what can I say? Intelligence is super sexy!). He was also curious about Vancouver and many local sites. At the end of the week, we both ended up on the "Comedy Cruise." 50 drunken comedians and a karaoke machine on a small boat for a 3 hour cruise. If that is not a recipe for disaster, I do not know what is. I hope that Eddie doesn't actually remember what happened that night.

I adore Eddie and I will defend him to the death but that does not mean I think he is perfect. He has been in some crappy movies. In my subjective opinion of course. I may post reviews of Eddie's work. Feel free to disagree with me.

Edward John "Eddie" Izzard (born 7 February 1962) is a British stand-up comedian, actor and voice-over artist. His comedy style takes the form of rambling, whimsical monologue and self-referential pantomime.

Izzard's works include stand-up sets Unrepeatable, Definite Article, Glorious, Dress to Kill, Circle, Sexie and Stripped. He had a starring role in the television series The Riches as Wayne Malloy and has appeared in many motion pictures such as Ocean's Twelve, Ocean's Thirteen, Mystery Men, The Cat's Meow, Across the Universe, and Valkyrie.

He has cited his main comedy role model as Monty Python, and John Cleese once referred to him as the "Lost Python". He is also known for his transvestism.

In 2009 he completed 43 marathons in 51 days for Sport Relief in spite of having no prior history of long distance running.

Read the rest of the Wikipedia article...

The 48-year-old comedian and actor will head a "high octane" new version of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale, playing the one-legged pirate, who sets sail with young hero Jim Hawkins in search of Flint's treasure, but is determined to steal it for himself.

Elaine Pyke, head of drama for Sky1 HD, said: "With the unique and multi talented Eddie Izzard in the iconic role of Long John Silver, we're set to deliver a hugely exciting, morally complex and compelling story of pirates, heroes, friendship and treachery."

The 18th century adventure of pirating and treasure hunting is set in the West Country and the Caribbean, but will soon begin filming in Ireland and Puerto Rico for broadcast at Christmas 2012.

The screenplay has been written by Stewart Harcourt - whose works include family drama Hearts And Bones, Poirot and Marple - and directed by Merlin's Steve Barron.

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Press Release

EDDIE IZZARD

KEVIN NEALON

SARAH SILVERMAN

ROBIN WILLIAMS

And a special surprise guest from late night tv

Wed. 10/27/2010, 8pm

Montalban Theatre

615 Vine St., Hollywood

Between Hollywood and Sunset

$40 seating in general section

$500 seating in VIP section plus post-show reception with performers.

Tickets limited!

Doors open at 7:15pm.

All tickets are open seating within each section

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

Please note, reservations must be made through this ActBlue link.

Reservations will not be accepted by phone or email

For more information call (310) 776.5850

or email rsvp@lacdp.org

Eddie Izzard, Rhys Ifans, Jonathan Pryce, Terry Jones, Damien Lewis and Helen McCrory are among the theatrical figures included in celebrity photographer Cambridge Jones' exhibit on display through Nov. 27 at the The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Eddie recorded a video to start of the search for volunteers for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.

Tony Award nominee Eddie Izzard, last seen on Broadway in the revival of A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, is the final actor named for the replacement cast of David Mamet's Race, according to the New York Times.

Izzard, who also appeared in the London production of Mamet's The Cryptogram, will succeed James Spader in the role of attorney Jack Lawson in Mamet's latest Broadway drama, which the playwright also directed. Spader will depart the production June 20. Izzard's start date has not been revealed.

Izzard will join Dennis Haysbert and Afton C. Williamson, who replace original Broadway cast members David Alan Grier and Kerry Washington, respectively, on June 15. Both Grier and Washington will play their final performances June 13, the date of the 2010 Tony Awards. Grier received a Best Actor nomination for his performance.

As previously reported, Richard Thomas will be the only original cast member to remain with the production. Race continues through Aug. 21.

Izzard made his Broadway debut in 2003 as Bri in Peter Nichols' Joe Egg. He earned an Olivier Award nomination for Eddie Izzard: Live at the Ambassadors. His stand-up evenings include Unrepeatable, Definite Article, Glorious, Dressed to Kill and Circle.

According to producers, Race concerns "three attorneys, two black and one white, [who] are offered a chance to defend a white man charged with a crime against a black woman."

Mamet elaborated on the plot in an interview with the New York Times. "In my play a firm made up of three lawyers, two black and one white, is offered the chance to defend a white man charged with a crime against a black young woman. It is a play about lies. All drama is about lies. When the lie is exposed, the play is over."

The design team for Race includes Santo Loquasto (sets), Brian Macdevitt (lighting) and Tom Broecker (costumes).

Race is produced by on Broadway by Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Jam Theatricals, JK Productions, Peggy Hill & Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, Scott M. Delman, Terry Allen Kramer/James L. Nederlander, Swinsky Deitch, Bat-Barry Productions, Ronald Frankel, James Fuld Jr., Kathleen K. Johnson, Terry Schnuck, The Weinstein Company, Jay & Cindy Gutterman/Stewart Mercer and Marc Frankel.

Mamet's plays also include Glengarry Glen Ross (1984 Pulitzer Prize and New York Drama Critics Circle Award, 2005 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play), American Buffalo, Boston Marriage, November, Speed-the-Plow and The Cryptogram. He has penned the screenplays for such films as "The Verdict," "The Untouchables," "Wag the Dog" and his own adaptation of "Oleanna." He has twice been nominated for an Academy Award. He has written and directed ten films including "Homicide," "The Spanish Prisoner," "State and Main," "House of Games," "Spartan" and "Redbelt." His tense 1992 drama Oleanna made its Broadway debut last fall.

The Ethel Barrymore Theatre is located at 243 West 47th Street. For more information, visit the Race Website.

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Film Independent just announced that comedian Eddie Izzard will serve as Master of Ceremonies for the 25th Film Independent Spirit Awards. "Izzard’s tangential, absurd, bizarre, and surreal comic narratives are lauded for their creativity and wit, which suits the irreverent, laid-back style of the Spirit Awards." This year's Spirits will be a late-night show on March 5, 2010 at LA Live’s event deck in downtown Los Angeles and shown live and uncut on IFC.

Eddie Izzard is determined to push himself to his peak fitness after recently finishing 43 consecutive marathons - he's now undergoing training to compete in a triathlon. Skip related content

The Valkyrie star has become obsessed with exercise after finishing a mammoth seven-week run in September as part of a fundraising campaign.

And Izzard has already plotted his next challenge - he's set to swim, sprint and cycle in a long-distance triathlon race.

He says, "I've just started up swimming because I want to do Ironman now. It's where you swim for five kilometres, then cycle for 180 kilometres and then you run a marathon after that - all in one go.

"I have (become fascinated with fitness) because there's no point in throwing away all that training. Swimming is really good upper-body (training) so I've been taking lessons. They teach you how to swim properly and that's great. I just want to keep up and get more healthy. Peak fitness at 90 - that's my idea!"

And the funnyman is urging his fellow Britons to get active so they can inspire homegrown athletes who are participating in the London 2012 Olympic Games.

He adds, "We've got the Olympics less than a thousand days ahead and I want to encourage people to take something they used to do when they were a kid and start doing it again. We're all living to about 100 now - unless you want the last 30 years of your life to be going really downhill, get healthy, get fit. Then we can encourage our athletes going into the Olympics to be able to have the fittest country (supporting them)."

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Comedian Eddie Izzard has run a half marathon between two south coast resorts before opening a newly modernised museum in his home town.

Izzard, who ran 43 marathons in 51 days for charity Sport Relief earlier this year, cut the ribbon at Bexhill Museum after running from Eastbourne.

"Running 43 marathons really tested out the legs, but they are fine," he said. "I expected more bad things to happen to them on the big run but they served me very well."

Izzard, who is appearing at Eastbourne's Devonshire Park Theatre on Thursday evening, attended two schools in the town. He lived in Bexhill, and used to work at a cafe near the site of the refurbished museum.

The opening is the culmination of a 10-year project to enlarge and modernise the 95-year-old museum. The £2m-plus project was funded with a £900,000 Heritage Lottery Fund grant, £700,000 from Rother District Council and £250,000 from the Society of Bexhill Museums plus other donations.

The original display area has been refurbished as the Sargent Gallery and there is a new Costume Gallery housing the collection from the former Bexhill Museum of Costume and Social History. The new Technology Collection is a gallery devoted to Bexhill's motor heritage.

"A lot of Bexhill has stayed the same, but I like the idea of regeneration," said Izzard. "Since the end of the war, with people retiring to Bexhill the pace and pulse has gone down. I like new art exhibitions and bands coming in and the new vibrancy. That is why I am running - because it is a healthy young idiot idea, even though I am 47. Now I am running, I am as fit as when I was 13."

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Comedy titans Jonathan Winters, Eddie Izzard, Roseanne Barr and Drew Carey will be seen riffing with each other in a new U.S. comedy series, Showtime said.

"Behind the Green Room Door," a new six-episode, half-hour comedy series, is slated to premiere in 2010.

Robert Greenblatt, president of entertainment at Showtime Networks Inc., made the announcement regarding the show Wednesday.

Paul Provenza, director and co-producer of the behind-the-scenes comedy documentary, "The Aristocrats," will serve as host of "Behind the Green Room Door."

"The Green Room is a 'safe space' for comedy, and a dangerous place for convention," Provenza said in a statement. "If you're not easily offended and can roll with whatever happens when there are no rules, then being behind that door can be the time of your life."

Also to be featured on the show will be Robert Klein, Penn Jillette, Martin Mull, Tommy Smothers, Bob Saget, Sandra Bernhard, Andy Dick, Rain Pryor, Rick Overton, Paul Mooney, Bobby Slayton, Jim Jefferies, Patrice O'Neal, Andy Kindler, Dana Gould, Brendon Burns, Larry Miller and Reginald D. Hunter.

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Funnyman Eddie Izzard is urging his fellow Brits to stand up to a tide of fascism sweeping European politics - amid fears right-wing extremists could gain a foothold in the U.K.

Political activists in Britain have launched a campaign after concerns grew over the rise of far right-wing British National Party, whose members expect to pick up thousands of votes in the upcoming European Parliamentary Elections next month (June09).

And comedian-turned-actor Izzard has backed calls for voters to make a stand against the controversial party to stop it gaining ground.

Izzard, who played a German World War II officer involved in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 2008 movie Valkyrie, tells Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper, "We all know the BNP is a racist party and racism is active hatred. The BNP talk about racial purity, a concept they learned from Hitler.

"I was in the U.S. for the elections and witnessed Hope's great victory. Yet now, in Britain, we are about to elect racists to represent us in Europe... If you believe in humanity, in our modern, diverse country, I ask you to reject the politics of hate."

British funnyman Eddie Izzard treated a fan injured in the Mumbai terror attacks to a stand-up routine as he recovered at a London hospital.

The star was visiting Will Pike in a South London facility, after he suffered a number of broken bones in the attacks last year.

Pike's father, Nigel, had written to Izzard explaining that his son was unable to attend the comedian's show at the Lyric Theatre in the U.K.'s capital because of his injuries and asked if the comic would send a note to his poorly son.

But Izzard went one better - going to see Pike in the hospital and performing his hour-and-a-half set for him and fellow patients.

Nigel Pike called Izzard's generous gesture "a great thing".

Wayne and Dahlia Malloy (Izzard and Minnie Driver, Grosse Pointe Blank) are travelers--a kind of American gypsies--who get in trouble with their clan and have to hit the road with their three kids (Shannon Woodward, Noel Fisher, and Aidan Mitchell). When a confrontation with other travelers causes a deadly car accident, the Malloys take over the dead couple's brand-new home--a mansion bought over the Internet--and assume the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Rich.

Ingredients:

• 2 cup flour
• Olive oil
• Light malt vinegar
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 green pepper, diced
• 50 g bacon, diced
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 6 cup mushrooms, sliced
• 2 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
• 2 green chillies, optional
• 1 small pot of single cream, optional
• Salt, pepper, and some Parmesan for topping

Directions:

1. First put the tomatoes and bacon into a pan and set them simmering. Add a dash of vinegar and some salt and pepper. You want to boil them down to make a nice thick sauce. This will probably take about 15 minutes. If you think the chillies will be too spicy, then add a drop of single cream to the mixture about halfway through.
   
2. Whilst this is doing dice the vegetables and put the water on for the pasta. Heat up a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan. Add the onions and peppers first, giving them about five minutes to soften. Add in the garlic and chilli, and get the pasta going (assuming the pasta will take 10 minutes - adjust accordingly). Give the vegetables a few more minutes, stirring to make sure it doesn't stick and the garlic doesn't burn, before adding the mushrooms. Add salt and a good helping of pepper at this point. Give these another 3 to 5 minutes.
   
3. By now the tomato sauce should be getting quite thick. Transfer this to the frying pan with the vegetables. Leave this to simmer for about ten minutes. Whilst this is going on your pasta should have just about been cooked. Drain it and mix in a little olive oil or butter to stop it sticking together. Add the sauce when done, and serve with a sprinkling of Parmesan.
   

Press Release

Forty. Just another birthday. Just another year crossed off the calendar. Just another moment in the continuum of time. Or rather it isn't. The cultural conundrum is that this age - more than any other - has become imbued with an almost mystical significance.

CHANNEL 4's new three-part drama 40, starring EDDIE IZZARD, JOANNE WHALLEY, KERRY FOX and HUGO SPEER is a drifting, surreal story that takes its audience into a bizarre, tragic and uncomfortable sexual and emotional landscape. It's a scarred landscape comprising the intimate conjunctions between the disparate, dissonant lives of seven 40 year-olds. Contemporaries born and bred in BRISTOL, the threads of their personal stories, tensions and tangential interconnections inexorably draw together at a disturbing school re-union.

Seemingly self-contained, each episode is just one allusive fragment in a discordant drama that resolves itself in a sequence of challenging personal realisations. Ever-absorbing, never maudlin, but tinged with a sense of loss, this is a fascinating and suspenseful tale of individuals coping with change and the need to re-evaluate the past and the present, and to face an unexpected future.

IZZARD is Ralph Outen: the successful, coke-snorting, enfant terrible of the advertising industry, incapable of coming to terms with his failure to create the relationship he desires with Anita (NIMMY MARSH), and finally dramatically undone by the commercial that he claims is his, but is based on a stolen concept. The devil is in the detail: one oversight is all it takes to fell the modern master of the sexy sell.

Meanwhile, behind the closed doors of Robert's (HUGO SPEER) and Maggie's (KERRY FOX) marriage, lies a disordered world of sordid sexual dysfunction that drives towards a shocking and violent conclusion; JOANNE WHALLEY (Jess, married to Ken) is forced to face the cracks in her marriage; whilst the quiet mystery of Gregory's (MARK BENTON) seemingly unexceptional life slowly, and surprisingly unfolds as the drama evolves.

The team behind this striking production boasts an excellent pedigree. 40 is directed by DAVID MOORE (The Forsyte Saga) and produced by EMMA BURGE (Ella and the Mothers) and STEWART BARLOW (Rose and Maloney). Executive Producers are CHARLIE PATTINSON and GEORGE FABER (The Lakes, North Square, Nicholas Nickleby, White Teeth). The writer of this provocative and explicit work is BRYAN ELSLEY whose credits include The Young Person's Guide to Becoming A Rock Star, The Crow Road and Nature Boy.

It's said that life begins at 40, that 40 is the new 30, or that 30-something is a time when people have passed their prime. All or none of which might be true: what 40 presents is a riveting world in which personal complexity denies the simplicity of the clichés of the age.

A Company Pictures production for Channel 4.

Buy 40 [DVD] [2003] from Amazon UK.

Eddie News: Feb 23, 2008

Comedian Eddie Izzard is backing plans for a national network of Speakers' Corners.

The stand-up star is to launch Nottingham Speakers' Corner on Friday - the first to be created since the one in Hyde Park 150 years ago.

Izzard told BBC One's Politics Show yesterday: "Freedom of speech is wonderful. It's good Nottingham is doing this and I think other towns should do it too."

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