Before last night, I must confess that I was an Eddie Izzard virgin. While I may have witnessed him in several film roles, it wasn't until this moment did I honestly know who this man was, how he thought, or that is true calling was in front of a large American audience making us chuckle at ourselves. Izzard is a transvestite, and is not ashamed to announce this to his audiences. Our first image of Izzard is in full make-up dressed as a female, little did I know that this was actually his "signature" appearance. Again, this is something that you do not know about the man while simply watching his films. If you want to experience Izzard for the first time, I think any of his one-man routines would be of help. Like a bottle of fresh wine, my wife and I chose Dress to Kill as our first sip of Izzard. I suppose it is as good as anywhere to begin. So, one fateful Saturday night, we popped his DVD into our player, sat ourselves down, and began the nearly two hour adventure into the mind of Eddie Izzard. Needless to say, I was both impressed and unimpressed all at once.
Izzard's routine, like a small child dealing with ADD, was all over the place. We open Dress to Kill with an homage of sorts to the San Francisco trolley line coupled with Alcatraz. It is a random opening, which should have given us an indication of what Izzard's performance was about to transform into. With inconsistent voice-overs about the people riding the trolley to nearly annoying repetitive wording, we are swept into the auditorium finally to see Izzard in person. Dressed rather feminine, he dashes on stage and begins his bits about politics, Britain, and history. Izzard, is literally, all over the place with his comedy. Spewing bits of humor mixed with, what I would later learn as classic, mumbles, pauses, and what felt like a complete lack of focus. Don't get me wrong, there were some bits that just would make you laugh with delight. Some that I remember were the "cake or death", Hollywood British villains, the American way, and his classic "yes/no" routine. Sadly, these humorous elements nearly clashed with his random tangents, which went quickly into a fast rewind back to his memorized routine.
It is obvious that Eddie Izzard is a smart man. From his routine, in which historical dates and events are obviously a excitable subject for him, you can see where his strengths and weaknesses are. His weakness, in my eyes, is the audience. It becomes abundantly clear midway through his bits that he will fall way off the subject if it is something the audience attaches itself to. In one aspect he would be discussing how the British loved to land on islands and place a flag there to call their own, the audience would laugh, he would go off on a tangent, and suddenly, ten minutes later, he would go back to that original thought. After a few times of doing this, I was annoyed. It is my belief that Izzard is a funny person by nature. He has the ability to make audiences laugh because of his eclectic style and excitement, sadly, what fails in this performance is his lack of formal comedy training. Now, I am no expert in the matter, but watching other famous comedians perform their routines, there seems to be a level of professionalism surrounding them. Watch Ray Romano, Rodney Dangerfield, or Jerry Seinfeld do their shows and you will witness a clean, crisp show which demonstrates to me that these performers actually rehearsed, rehearsed, and rehearsed again to get it right. Izzard, it was obvious, did not. Maybe he did, but in Dress to Kill it just felt like he read the newspaper one day, thought of some funny jokes, memorized a pattern, and nearly forgot it while on stage. He seemed sporadic and completely unprepared. I need to watch more Izzard, maybe this is his style, but for me, it seemed cheap and distorted.
Coupled with Izzard's procrastination approach to comedy, the production value on this DVD felt like a late 80s release. I felt like I was watching an RPG game in which the camera angle goes everywhere except for the places that you instantly need it. Either the cameraman was drunk or the director just loved jumping from angle to angle. As viewers, we would find ourselves with a full shot of Izzard, then jump to a distance shot, to some random audience angle, and followed by some other random angle. We couldn't just stay in one place, but just like Izzard's routine, seemed to be all over the place with no consistency. Like most comedy DVDs, I wanted to see the audience laughing, I wanted to see more of Izzard's expressions (which, in my humble opinion, are his best traits), I wanted to see more of Izzard in general. The quality of this DVD does not enhance the quality of Izzard's show, sadly, it only seems to bring the overall production value down.
Overall, if I were asked to watch another Eddie Izzard one-man stand-up routine, I would proudly say "yes". Perhaps this was one of his less valued tours (which is strange because it is this one that won him the most awards), but I want to give Izzard another chance. Eddie Izzard is hysterical when he works on his routine. His random interjections can be funny, but it is his well-developed jokes and commentary that really make his style of comedy stand out. I am eager to watch his "action" transvestite on screen and watch this "full-of-potential" comic develop in his career. Would I suggest this DVD to friends? I think that I would for the tasty cookies crumbled between ill-placed jokes, but I do not think I could watch Dress to Kill another time.
Grade: *** out of *****
Izzard's routine, like a small child dealing with ADD, was all over the place. We open Dress to Kill with an homage of sorts to the San Francisco trolley line coupled with Alcatraz. It is a random opening, which should have given us an indication of what Izzard's performance was about to transform into. With inconsistent voice-overs about the people riding the trolley to nearly annoying repetitive wording, we are swept into the auditorium finally to see Izzard in person. Dressed rather feminine, he dashes on stage and begins his bits about politics, Britain, and history. Izzard, is literally, all over the place with his comedy. Spewing bits of humor mixed with, what I would later learn as classic, mumbles, pauses, and what felt like a complete lack of focus. Don't get me wrong, there were some bits that just would make you laugh with delight. Some that I remember were the "cake or death", Hollywood British villains, the American way, and his classic "yes/no" routine. Sadly, these humorous elements nearly clashed with his random tangents, which went quickly into a fast rewind back to his memorized routine.
It is obvious that Eddie Izzard is a smart man. From his routine, in which historical dates and events are obviously a excitable subject for him, you can see where his strengths and weaknesses are. His weakness, in my eyes, is the audience. It becomes abundantly clear midway through his bits that he will fall way off the subject if it is something the audience attaches itself to. In one aspect he would be discussing how the British loved to land on islands and place a flag there to call their own, the audience would laugh, he would go off on a tangent, and suddenly, ten minutes later, he would go back to that original thought. After a few times of doing this, I was annoyed. It is my belief that Izzard is a funny person by nature. He has the ability to make audiences laugh because of his eclectic style and excitement, sadly, what fails in this performance is his lack of formal comedy training. Now, I am no expert in the matter, but watching other famous comedians perform their routines, there seems to be a level of professionalism surrounding them. Watch Ray Romano, Rodney Dangerfield, or Jerry Seinfeld do their shows and you will witness a clean, crisp show which demonstrates to me that these performers actually rehearsed, rehearsed, and rehearsed again to get it right. Izzard, it was obvious, did not. Maybe he did, but in Dress to Kill it just felt like he read the newspaper one day, thought of some funny jokes, memorized a pattern, and nearly forgot it while on stage. He seemed sporadic and completely unprepared. I need to watch more Izzard, maybe this is his style, but for me, it seemed cheap and distorted.
Coupled with Izzard's procrastination approach to comedy, the production value on this DVD felt like a late 80s release. I felt like I was watching an RPG game in which the camera angle goes everywhere except for the places that you instantly need it. Either the cameraman was drunk or the director just loved jumping from angle to angle. As viewers, we would find ourselves with a full shot of Izzard, then jump to a distance shot, to some random audience angle, and followed by some other random angle. We couldn't just stay in one place, but just like Izzard's routine, seemed to be all over the place with no consistency. Like most comedy DVDs, I wanted to see the audience laughing, I wanted to see more of Izzard's expressions (which, in my humble opinion, are his best traits), I wanted to see more of Izzard in general. The quality of this DVD does not enhance the quality of Izzard's show, sadly, it only seems to bring the overall production value down.
Overall, if I were asked to watch another Eddie Izzard one-man stand-up routine, I would proudly say "yes". Perhaps this was one of his less valued tours (which is strange because it is this one that won him the most awards), but I want to give Izzard another chance. Eddie Izzard is hysterical when he works on his routine. His random interjections can be funny, but it is his well-developed jokes and commentary that really make his style of comedy stand out. I am eager to watch his "action" transvestite on screen and watch this "full-of-potential" comic develop in his career. Would I suggest this DVD to friends? I think that I would for the tasty cookies crumbled between ill-placed jokes, but I do not think I could watch Dress to Kill another time.
Grade: *** out of *****