Eddie Izzard comes to Winnipeg
Earlier this week I had the chance to see one of the funniest topical comedians on the circuit. Eddie Izzard, for those of you who haven’t heard, is a comedian from Great Britain who has had several comedic movie roles over the past several years, including My Super Ex-Girlfriend and The Avengers. His comedy show Dress to Kill was been featured on HBO and his other comedy tours have also been recorded and sold on DVD. He is known for his current event laced humour which includes politics and religion.
His latest comedy tour, Stripped, made a stop in Winnipeg on May 10th. He delivered his show to a “not quite sold out” audience at the Burton Cummings Theatre in downtown Winnipeg. The focus of his show this time seems to be the evolution of civilization as well as evolution. He took some amazing shots at the religious right in the US which got a really good response from the obviously liberal Canadian crowd, calling on God to come down and prove him wrong. Of course, God didn’t make an appearance, but he then went on to mention spiders and brooms that had made odd appearances during previous shows.
The calling into question the timeline of the creation of the world according to religion as opposed to science was fertile ground with shots on every front landing square in the face of religious dogma. His allusion to the possibility that if there is a god, he is likely on some trippy pharmaceuticals was hilarious especially using the microphone as a prop crack-pipe.
As the show went on, there were a few subtle references to previous comedy bits from past shows. His reference to bees got a roar of applause and laughter. He thanked the crowd for that, and then refused to explain it to those members of the audience who may not have know what he was referring to. He also brought out several of his vocal impressions which were also a big hit. God of course had the voice of James Mason, and Noah was once again the voice of Sean Connery.
For those of you who are familiar with Eddie, you will recognize his tendency to ramble from topic to topic with great segues followed by jolting non-sequitors back to the origin starting topic. As usual some of his rambling comedy would leave the audience with that huh feeling, followed closely by the note taking pantomime about losing the audience which always gets a laugh.
Personally, the comedy piece that had me gasping for air and holding my ribs in pain from laughter had to be the bit about the Spartans. The flow of the topic was about the progress of technology when if comes to humans killing each other. His on stage antics surrounding how an army was to attack a phalanx formation had me in tears I was laughing so hard.
My friends and I were discussing the length of the show later and from a money to entertainment stand-point, the nearly three hour show was very much worth the $70 we paid for our tickets. I would definitely shell out the cash to see him should his next show come this way again.