<< CLOSE THIS WINDOW TO RETURN TO TOUR REVIEWS PAGE >>

Eddie Izzard's CIRCLE tour

Brixton Academy 16/12/99 (the last date of the tour)

Review by Angela Lamb

Okay, so it's 16th December 1999, the concluding night of Eddie Izzard's latest tour, CIRCLE, and an exceptionally well-dressed audience arrives to welcome another night of surreal, intelligent and entertaining humour and observation. We're greeted by a stylishly designed set, featuring a backdrop of the universe and in contrast to this, the tour's emblem of the very tactile, giant purple rose in the foreground. There is also a continuation in the use of groovy lighting - sound & lighting synchronisation at the outset of the show, something which you'll recognise from the previous tours. Brixton Academy is an ideal choice as a stage environment for this performance, it's an epic venue, very theatrical, very encompassing as is Eddie, so it's a great combination. The show also has a new music theme (as you've come to expect), along with a new composer (Sarah McGuinness), less orchestral more dance inspired, and really well devised.

And cue, Eddie, making a grand entrance, to descend from the equally beautiful, purple rose, to the stage, in a (probably Jean-Paul Gaultier) black/charcoal pleated skirt and fluffy trimmed, sequined (according to Eddie) top, and some rather inspiring knee-length boots.

Eddie on stage

Eddie appears to be really captivating throughout this performance, and engages the audience fully, there is a sense that he is directing all his comedy energy at every individual in the venue, like a one-to-one tutorial with the roles of tutor and student being constantly reversed and exchanged. He brings along a new catalogue of themes and thoughts, as well as referring to previous subject matter but broadening it all the time. He also displayed his humour reflexes dealing with one of the night's sole heckler's who threw an inaudible, antagonistic comment at Eddie, whose reaction was like a rapid-firing shot, his defence was engaged and a nameless individual's comments were rendered ineffective and vitoed. Eddie advising the nameless figure to just kind of breath, relax and just generally Zen out a bit. touche.

Much was said throughout the night, well, (that's what you'd expect anyway) much was also sung, including the Carpenter's, Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody lyrics "Galileo, Galileo, will you do the fandango?" as an introduction of Galileo to Socrates and a singing Margaret Thatcher.

Eddie also makes clear references to his confessed love of film, speaking about Star Wars and it's new implications on child numeracy (thanks to this whole prequel thing) and the annoying lack of vocabulary of Jar Jar Binks plus his general character defaults. There are also observations on Darth Vader, and the notion that there must have been a canteen on the Death Star, followed by Eddie, placing Darth into the situation of queuing and not being recognised and also not following the unwritten rules of canteen culture. Resulting in Darth being confronted by a canteen lady who refuses to serve him saying, "you can't do anything in here without a tray," he replying "I can kill you with a single thought", and attempting to bypass this Ôtray' rule. Verbal table-tennis ensues resulting in Darth being beaten down by the canteen lady. A second battle occurs as he reluctantly gets a tray and then tries to return to his place in the queue and he starts to protest with "I've reserved an order (for an Italian pasta dish)". He's offered peas with it, trying to sound upper-class/ highly esteemed he refuses insisting that they are never served together but again he backs down and his artificial principles are withdrawn.

He also breaks into a monologue about Socrates and his over-philosophising tendencies along with the intrinsic problems of meeting someone like that. Namely the impossibility of having any kind of meaningful conversation, just a bombardment of eternal questions with no room for discussion - the who are you? what am I? what am I doing? what are you doing? are you okay? what is okay? kind of ponderences which would drive you to complete annoyance and possible destructive behaviour.

Circle also features regulars, Jeezy Creezy and God (James Mason), and the creation of Adam and Eve, in his image, but what was the whole dinosaur thing? Was he on drugs? The fact that dinosaurs have small arms, which are only really useful for playing piano and holding/ playing cards, and the strange thing of the brain in the tail and it being the size of a pea.

He also talks about the Cow situation in Europe and offers up the obvious but currently neglected thought that we should "Feed them grass, it's free not endangered. Greenpeace haven't protested against endangered grass.They haven't jumped aboard their ship and sailed it to a large field. Whatever happened to grass?". On another animal area, there is Eddie's idea about dolphin song with his suggestion that "Dolphins are the DJs of the sea. Dolphin song, if you slow it down would actually sound more like "I love you Baby, and if it's quite alright, I love you baby, da da dah dah da" kind of showbizy. Or doing a Carpenter's Song." With both ideas receiving audience acknowledgement, carried on a ethereal tidal wave.

Throughout the night, Eddie gave energetic and truly improvised displays of (in his own words) swooshy skirt action, leading to observations on Flamenco, and his amazing abilities of mime, including sponge walls, shelving, and feeling buttocks.

He also delved into the world of the Guinness Book of Records and the bizarre records contained within it. Plus the added feature of the B.C bug featuring donkeys with collapsing legs, and perculiarities.

After the gig, I was also fortunate enough to meet Eddie, who was friendly, gorgeous and really hospitable, who received requests for mesages on people's trousers, tops and various other locations. He was all that I expected and a little bit more.

A meeting of Izzardites after the show!

My current suggestions for why the tour is called CIRCLE are as follows:

• in semiotics / symbolism it can represent the female/feminine, and nature
• you've got the cycle of life,
• and there is also the reference to fashionability (from Glorious / Definite Article) - looking cool to looking like a dickhead.

And as a summary, it was an excellent show despite previous comments, brilliantly staged, with very energetic delivery and I look forward to the next tour and whatever projects Eddie has up his chosen sleeves.

Angela (angilamb@yahoo.com)

<< CLOSE THIS WINDOW TO RETURN TO TOUR REVIEWS PAGE >>