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From Laughs In The Park 2011

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Born in Yemen, Eddie Izzard moved to Northern Ireland when he was about two, then to south Wales in 1967. His mother died of cancer in March 1968, when he was six, and he has frequently cited her early death as a reason for going into stand-up.

He began as a street performer in the Eighties, having been being kicked off his accountancy course at Sheffield University, and then moved into the stand-up circuit. His first appearance at The Comedy Store was in 1987.

He was nominated for the Perrier in 1991, the same year he won a Time Out Comedy Award, and in 1993, he was named top stand-up at the British Comedy Award for Live At The Ambassadors – which was also nominated for an Oliver theatre award. He scooped the same British Comedy Award three years later for his second show, Definite Article.

He followed that up with the shows Glorious and Dress To Kill, which was to prove his breakthrough in America. First performed in 1997, it aired on HBO two years later, winning him two Emmy Awards for performance and writing. In 2000, he cemented his reputation in the US by touring the country with the show Circle.

In 2001, he hosted the Amnesy Benefit We Know Where You Live! at Wembley Arena, and in 2003 embarked on a world tour of a new show, Sexie. His latest show, Stripped, began with a 34-city American tour in 2008, before transferring to the West End for a five-week run, ahead of its tour of the UK in late 2009.

Early in his career, Izzard took a famously offhand approach to television, turning down most appearances. Although in 1997, he wrote the sitcom Cows for Channel 4, about a family of bovines, played by humans in prostethics. But the surreal show was critically panned.

Alongside his comedy, Izzard has developed a straight acting career, that has spanned TV, film and stage.

In 1994, Izzard made his West End drama debut as the lead in David Mamet's The Cryptogram, which was followed by starring roles in David Beaird's black comedy 900 Oneonta and Christopher Marlowe's Edward II. Izzard portrayed Lenny Bruce in the 1999 revival of Julian Barry's biographical play Lenny, and two years later he starred in another West End revival, A Day In The Death Of Joe Egg – a role he reprised on Broadway in 2003, earning him a Tony Award nomination.

He made his film debut in 1996, when he appeared in both the Damien Hirst short film Hanging Around and a movie adaptation of Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent. Other early notable movie appearances include Velvet Goldmine, The Avengers, Mystery Men, All The Queen's Men, and The Cat's Meow, n which he played Charlie Chaplin. In 2003 he starred on TV as testosterone-fuelled Ralph in the three-part Channel 4 drama 40.

His stock as an actor rose further with an appearance in the blockbuster squel Ocean's Twelve in 2004; and in 2006, he landed his biggest American break, co-starring with Minnie Driver in the FX drama series the Riches, about a family of con artists trying to go straight after assuming the identity of a suburban couple, which ran until 2008.

Further major roles include Ocean's Thirteen in 2007, and his starring role opposite Tom Cruise in the 2008 wartime action film Valkyrie.

Izzard is also passionate about issues including history, European integration and the environment. In 2003 he fronted the Discovery Channel documentary series Mongrel Nation. aboutEnglish identity, has long spoken about becoming more active in European politics, and appeared in a 2005 party political broadcast for the Labour Party, to which he has donated more than £10,000.

Laughs In The Park 2011
Live Review

Just before Laughs In The Park, Eddie Izzard became the first solo comedy act to play the Hollywood Bowl, entertaining 12,000 people in the venue where Monty Python and the Beatles once ruled.

But in St Albans, it’s a more difficult sell. Probably as this most certainly isn’t LA weather. The ambitious Laughs In The Park festival, now in its second year, has a capacity of around 6,000, but on this first night of three, it’s half-full at best, despite the added attractions of Ross Noble, Tommy Tiernan – and a side-stage sponsored by the BBC offering an afternoon line-up of strong circuit acts.

Nor do many shows start with an arial display team, but the four planes that execute impressive manoeuvres above Verulamium Park certainly piloted home the message that this is a big show.

The start of the comedy itself is a little less slick, as Noble cowers in the foliage that dresses the stage, urging the audience to take their seats. They only really comply when he comes out from the undergrowth and starts riffing with Izzard... after all, no one wants to miss the two master surrealists together. And jolly good fun it is too, especially when they start mimicking each other.

Once the show proper starts, Noble seems a little off-form; getting overly fixated on the idea that the on-stage shrubbery might be a dogging spot, although his imagination never really lets fly on the subject. However his banter with the audience members who attempt to yell things out is sharper, undoubtedly helped by the fact that one heckler’s seat hilariously collapses mid-sentence.

Back after the interval, the flightly Geordie hits his mark more accurately, with a prepared routine about Bono visiting that proves hugely entertaining, mainly due to Noble’s drifting accent and grotesque exaggeration of the U2 frontman’s persona.

Then Tommy Tiernan, who continues his steady bid to become as acclaimed in Britain as he is back home with this high-profile appearance – and he would surely have won over a lot of fans tonight.

On the face of it, he’s a walking cliche – a twinkle-eyed Irishman talking about religion, drinking and family life. But that’s to ignore the clear fact that he has the vocabulary of a poet, the soul of a maverick and the passion of an evangelist.

He sermonises against the cosy, cosseted modern life, urging us to be freed by the rush of unpredictability. ‘It’s important to stay wild,’ he exhorts, ‘to have a touch of lunacy about you.’ He practises what he preaches, too, this fiery iconoclast, with a whirlwind set that often has a frisson of danger.

But it’s not all bombast, Tiernan has supreme control of a crowd’s emotions - even a crowd as big as this one – turning them on a sixpence. He’ll rant and rave against the Irish economy or overemotional teenagers one minute, then bring it down to a whisper as he talks about a brother who died. But it’s not maudlin or mawkish, just another way of celebrating life.

His command of the mood is matched only by his command of the language. There are the grand, witty metaphors that get the laughs, but it’s the pleasing eloquence in almost every phrase, something as simple as coining the mass noun ‘a platoon of baboons’, that ensures joy in even the smallest detail. It’s why he’s one of the finest comedians Ireland has ever produced.

It was a tough act to follow... even if you are Eddie Izzard. The star attraction was somewhat overshadowed by his support act, not helped by the fact that the heavens opened by the second half, and audiences cowering under umbrellas or pulling hats tight around their ears are never going to be the most responsive.

Izzard trotted through some of his greatest hits from his Stripped show, the one which covers the entire history of civilisation with a slight atheist undertow. Tonight, we got the first bit, from dinosaurs through the dawning of the Stone Age to Hannibal crossing the Alps.

It’s jolly entertaining stuff, thanks to his one-man sketches such as the cavemen discovering language or the Roman messenger struggling with Latin that owes more than a nod to Izzard’s Python heroes. He knows this stuff backwards (and even in French, as his recent run in Paris proved) and the preposterous imagery and witty anachronisms are as funny as Izzard is smart.

But he did do a lot of this material here last year – and while there’s some pleasure to be had in hearing his greatest hits, this festival probably demands a greater turnover of material from one year to the next if it’s to get the repeat business to be sustainable. As tonight’s attendance showed – it’s a big ask filling 18,000 seats in a city with a population of 65,000, even if it is only half an hour out of London.

The idea of Laughs In The Park is a strong one, though, borrowing from music festivals to make a big, bold, must-see event – and the production here is faultless, from that initial flypast to the fireworks at the end. If only the British summer was so reliable.

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Eddie Izzard is by far my favourite comedian of all time. from his yarns on such random topics as washing machines in the show Unrepeatable to commenting on the slight difference between being in the army and being a comedian are purely hilarious. This man is a comic genius.

Someguy, March 2007

The first time I ever saw him was on TV and my friend and i ended up on the floor with tears running down our eyes. He is fantastic.

pete, December 2006

Was a superb comedian but his later work felt tired and he seems to have become a parody of himself.

Pandora Roxx, December 2006

Have been in love with Eddie Izzard since I was about 14. I have travelled the length of the country to see him and would do it again in a heartbeat. From what I saw on the Amnesty Secret Policeman's Ball, he is still beating around the same topics, but he seems fresher than he has in a while. Looking good too, butch lesbian phase? One of the funniest men in the world at the moment and my absolute favourite action transvestite.

Miss Flea, November 2006

The best comedian since Milligan. Surreal, bizzare... and in a skirt. What more could one want? Except an answer to the question "cake or death?"...

Izzard fan, October 2006

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