Cake or Death · 27 December 2002
Making people laugh is surely one of the highest callings, right up there with feeding the hungry and healing the sick, but I fucking loathe standup comedy. The format, anyway. Or maybe just standup comedians, pressing ever onward in a consensual suspension of disbelief that standing onstage ridiculing the universally ridiculous and recounting the phrases that pop into one’s head watching television is an effective mask for saying, effectively, please like me, please like me into a microphone. Comedians: largely disposable. Except for one.
You know of Eddie Izzard, yes? The comedian oblique actor with a 20-lagers-and-vindaloo paunch and slab face who happens to be a transvestite though this in and of itself is not a problem save for the occasional overenthusiastic application of eye makeup and did we really need the bra-and-knickers shot Eddie I mean really?
If you have not heard him you should, for he is a genius, though it’s not entirely easy to discern why. He trammels familiar comedy ground (ridicule, television), and isn’t really better than other comedians in intellect or insight (his gift is for language, and for unexpected image juxtapositions, and internal conversation turned outward; nothing radical there) but, well, he’s funny.
Circle, the newest Eddie Izzard show (recorded back in 2000 in New York but only recently available on DVD) came in the mail yesterday. Though not on par with some of his earlier shows, it is good; it is very good & funny.
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