Eddie Izzard in San Francisco
Posted by James Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:42:00 GMT
On Friday, I went to see Eddie Izzard perform at the Orpheum Theater. For those of you not familiar, Izzard is a comedic genius who usually does his stand-up routine in drag. His jokes are extremely sophisticated and usually draws a very intelligent crowd.
This time, however, he did not appear in drag and was immediately heckled by the audience. Yes, San Francisco is full of demanding assholes. But like a true professional, he handled it very well and made jokes on the hecklers. Then he launched into his routines. It actually took me awhile to get up to speed to what he was saying because he was talking extremely fast and in his British accent (and my seat also was far away in the Mezzanine). In the show he basically ran through natural history from the beginning of the earth to the Romans. He did running jokes on the Bible and religion and it was unbelievably sophisticated and hilarious.
The funniest routine, in my opinion, is when he made fun of the Latin language and its complex syntax. He pretended to be a messenger bringing the news of Hannibal coming around the mountains with elephants. At various points he was speaking in German, Italian, French, and probably some other language I didn’t catch. It’s just too funny. You had to be there.
Here’s a little sample of Eddie Izzard’s humor. It is funny and the funniness increases exponentially the more you know what he’s talking about. In this case, French.