Cake or death

So.. the finale to the weekend - an evening with my complete comedy hero (and kitty namesake) Eddie Izzard!!  I've been a fan of Eddie since he burst onto the stand-up scene in the early 90s and have seen him many times in concert, both in the UK and here in the US.  If you have never listened to, or seen, Definitive Article, Unrepeatable or Dress to Kill, drop what you are doing RIGHT NOW, find it on Netflix and watch it.  Stat.

Its OK.

I'll wait.























See?  Bloody funny, right?  I freaking LOVE Eddie.

Anyway, Eddie's been through a bit of tough time in recent years and definitely lost his mojo for a while.  I went to one of his first dip-the-toe-back-in-the-water shows in SF a couple of years ago - and was very disappointed.  Instead of being wildly brilliant and freestylingly fantastic , his signature style of random association just seemed self-indulgent and forced.  It was very flat and I left feeling equally deflated.  Most folk here in the US will be more familiar with his TV work, appearing in shows like "The Riches" rather than his stand-up roots, so they probably didn't know what to expect or have the same frame of reference that I did.

For those of you who are STILL unfamiliar with Eddie (and who completely ignored my earlier treaties) then just do me a favor and watch this little clip.  Its by this guy who has set some of Eddie's classic skits to Lego, and this is one of my all-time favorites!

Eddie selfie!!

Anyway, that gives you a taste of Eddie at the Height of His Powers and, this time, he did not disappoint!  While I'd say he still wasn't quite as consistently brilliant as his Jam Trouser and Covered in Bees days, he was still pretty damn funny!  He was playing for 3 nights at the Chicago Theatre as part of his world tour (thanks, Jason for the earlier NYC-based tip-off!) so we caught him on his second night.  It was the first time I'd been to the theater, so that was also fun and new, and I'd had the genius idea of pre-paying for parking (only $21 which - by SF standards - is super cheap!) in the garage attached to the venue, so no need to stress out about finding somewhere to park!  The show was due to start at 8pm, so we left home at around 6.45pm, arriving at the theatre about 30mins later with plenty of time to spare.  I'd gotten us pretty decent tickets (row GG) so was very happy indeed with how close we were to the stage and our view!  The venue itself is pretty small, so there probably wasn't a bad seat in the house.  The only mild concern as we sat in our seats ahead of show time was who would end up sitting in front of us!  There did seem to be an inordinately large number of freakishly tall people (perhaps there was a basketball conference in town or something) so Mumsie and I sat in our seats, both silently praying for short people!!  In the end we completely lucked out as there was no-one in front of us, so we had a perfectly unobstructed view for the whole of the performance.

And what a performance it was.  He was great.  He wasn't in full TV get-up this time, instead opting for a very sharp suit and even sharper bright red fingernails, accompanied with a bowler hat and a cane umbrella. All terribly British.  He looked very well and healthy (its amazing what not subjecting your body to running a marathon a day will do for you) so I was glad to see that Eddie Was Back!  I'm not going to do him the disservice of trying to recount some of his gags (those of you familiar with him will know how impossible a task that would be!) but suffice it to say that Mr. Stevens played a pivotal role throughout the whole show.  A very welcome reprise.  (alas no Mrs. Badcrumble, but maybe next time).  And who'dve thought that the great Roman military commander Mark Antony was really a chicken with mechanical legs?  That is the pure genius of Eddie - you learn something new every time.

Now, did someone mention cake?

Happy sigh - first theater trip in Chicago and couldn't have asked
for a more perfect first show!

I wonder how many folk in the audience
got the Avengers reference?

Beautiful interior of the historic Chicago theatre

Brilliant seats - very happy bunnies