November 30, 2008
Eddie Izzard — Stripped: Lyric, W1 - the Sunday Times review
Stephen Armstrong
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/comedy/article5239624.eceEddie Izzard has always been ambitious. He's worked his way up from street performer to movie star by dint of sheer effort. In his first West End show for 12 years, however, he sets himself his greatest challenge yet: a stand-up show about "every single thing that's ever happened". As he admits, the resulting material owes a great deal to Wikipedia. Technically speaking, he fails to achieve the stated goal, although he manages to include the formation of the planet and irritation at iTunes updates, neatly bracketing history's arc. Clearly, in two hours of wonderfully tortuous musings, he's going to have trouble covering the French Revolution, Asda and the chemical make-up of sea water — to pick three random things he didn't include — but this is because Izzard has a theme, and the totality of space-time is bent to serve it. As he states at the outset: "I have come to the conclusion that there is no God." As he's worked and lived in America for a while, it's creationists who come under his surprisingly aggressive attack — which the UK's favourite ->-bleeped-<- delivers, for those who watch out for these things, in man-clothes rather than a dress.
