{"id":4108,"date":"2019-10-10T11:19:42","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T11:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/?p=4108"},"modified":"2019-10-10T11:23:29","modified_gmt":"2019-10-10T11:23:29","slug":"ready-eddie-wunderbar-eddie-izzards-farewell-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/ready-eddie-wunderbar-eddie-izzards-farewell-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Ready Eddie: Wunderbar! Eddie Izzard’s farewell tour"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
My Nottingham Post review of the first night at our Royal Concert Hall
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Six years after giving us two nights at the arena, Eddie Izzard returns for more two nights in a more intimate venue. This is being billed as the 57-year-old transgender comedian\u2019s \u2018last stand-up show\u2019. Last time round, his (surprisingly short) show felt tired, the edge blunted by his campaign to become London Mayor. In the next General Election, he hopes to win a Labour seat. Nothing funny about that.

Eddie comes on in leather jacket, fake boobs \u2018from IKEA\u2019 and a tartan kilt. Brexit and the fate of the planet features only at the beginning and end. Donald Trump does provide the punch line to one brilliant, surreal, extended joke. But most of this is Izzard doing what he does best, wild tangential humour where the funniest part is a final throwaway quip that only works in context. His act’s occasionally unfocussed, but that’s factored into the price, as they say of Trump, and there are some lovely semi-improvised rambles with bits in French and German. The show\u2019s called Wunderbar<\/em> he explains, because 30s German politics are back in fashion.

It\u2019s an epic, valedictory farewell show, with a gentle good-natured feel, slipping often into autobiography. Early family stuff. Swimming the channel and, of course, all those marathons. \u2018The first ten marathons are hard, I\u2019ll give you that. After that, it\u2019s easy.\u2019 There\u2019s plenty on evolution, one of his earliest themes. He turns Trump\u2019s \u2018Let\u2019s Make American Great Again\u2019
into \u2018Let\u2019s Make Humanity Great Again.\u2019

Izzard returns for the second half in suit, shorts and heels. The riff on bats (and cake mixture) is funny and builds well. His final Lord of the Rings spiel, however, feels exhausted. \u2018I\u2019ll see you on the parapets\u2019 he says before leaving the stage.

The encore restores the two and a half hour show’s good vibe with a routine largely about his childhood, then a brief explanation of why he\u2019s going into politics.

Europe has already seen two comedians lead their country this decade.
Don\u2019t rule out that happening here. Eddie\u2019s ready. We could do worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Six years after giving us two nights at the arena, Eddie Izzard returns for more two nights in a more intimate venue. This is being billed as the 57-year-old transgender comedian\u2019s \u2018last stand-up show\u2019. Last time round, his (surprisingly short) show felt tired, the edge blunted by his campaign to become London Mayor. In the next General Election, he hopes to win a Labour seat. Nothing funny about that. Eddie comes on in leather jacket, fake boobs \u2018from IKEA\u2019 and a tartan kilt. Brexit and the fate of the planet features only at the beginning and end. Donald Trump does provide the punch line to one brilliant, surreal, extended joke. But most of this is Izzard doing what he does best, wild tangential humour where…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4108"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4113,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4108\/revisions\/4113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}