-Our next guest is the legendary Emmy Award-winning
stand-up comedian and actor.
You can see her performing Charles Dickens'
"Great Expectations" at the Greenwich Theater in New York.
Please welcome back or friend, Eddie Izzard, everyone.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Welcome back, Eddie!
-Very goodsies.
I know I was here before.
In the -- one of the dinosaur eras sometime ago.
-Yeah, it's been a while --
-I like to space them out,
Just so you know, it's nothing personal.
-You don't like to do them too close together.
-I know I could have been back earlier but I said,
No, let's make it long so everyone says,
well, who? Who is this?
But it was back in one of the dinosaur eras, and it was good.
You had a great show then, and it's a great show now.
-Well, I'm very happy to have you here.
-I'm always a little taken aback by
the challenges you present to yourself as a performer.
Obviously I know you as a very accomplished stand-up,
and yet here you are doing a one-person show based on
Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations."
Is this something you always wanted to do?
-When I was 7 I wanted to be an actor.
I don't know how comedy attracted you
when you were a kid, but it was just acting, just acting.
My mom died when I was a kid, and I thought
Oh, the applause of the audience,
I kind of craved that love.
And then -- I was a smaller kid.
I was dyslexic so I couldn't do sight readings for auditions,
so I was the jailer or the butler, or the thing.
Not the interesting one.
I was once asked, what kind of role would you like?
And I said, well, you know those big roles with the sword
and you kill everyone and you get the girl?
That kind of role.
And they said, what about jailer?
[ Groans ]
I didn't know why I was being asked about it,
'cause, really, everybody wants the big role.
But now, I -- This is the punishment for my own ego.
I do every single one -- 15,000 words.
I'm playing everyone, if people know "Great Expectations,"
from Pip to Magwitch, The Convict, to Estella,
Miss Havisham, I'm playing them all.
And, so, I can only complain to myself.
But I love it. I do love it.
And it is dramatic.
There are certain parts which are comedic.
And tomorrow is my birthday.
-Happy birthday!
[ Cheers and applause ]
-But, exciting, tomorrow is also Charles Dickens' birthday.
-Well. -Yes.
-Is this some sort of cosmic --
-It is a kind of cosmic.
There's no word after cosmic. Just a cosmic.
And it's a -- I knew this from when I was a kid.
But I did the audio book.
I got someone to pay me to do the audio book
'cause I don't read, I'm dyslexic,
so I was a very slow reader.
They paid me to read the book.
So the audio book of "Great expectations," 20 hours of it,
is out there, and you can download it at your pleasure.
But I thought let's do a stage show to go with it
using the technique of Richard Pryor.
Which, Richard Pryor, the great Richard Pryor,
in his stand-up he would occasionally have characters
going, hey, what do you think? [ Mumbles ]
And they would turn to each other and talk.
And that's what I did throughout my stand-up
thinking that's what everyone did.
A lot of stand-ups don't do that, actually.
-It's very hard. You're one of my favorites.
During that, I remember seeing you live and realizing
how you were in the body of stand-up
doing what seemed like sketch comedy almost.
You felt like it was a visualization
of all these characters. -And that's where I came from.
I came from very Monty Python influenced sketch comedy.
Just playing one character with this kind of --
And then playing another character
with this kind of voice in a different sketch.
You now, and then some other voice and different physicality.
But now they're all together talking to each other in,
like, a weird chess game.
And in the Dickens, I sometimes ad lib as Estella or Pip,
or Magwitch.
I make things up in Dickensian speak.
Which is little Easter eggs
for people who really know the script.
No one could memorize the script.
-Have you ever, you know, ad libed outside of the text
and had someone in the audience go, "Hey!"?
-No.
'Cause I would go, "What?"
"You said the words wrong."
"Well, [ bleep ] you."
[ Laughter ]
No, there's a line -- there's one which I like,
which I'm not allowed to take out because it's too funny.
Which is Uncle Pumblechook, this kind of pompous guy,
Uncle Pumblechook was a large, hard-breathing man.
Face like a fish, dull, staring eyes
with hair that stuck up like tuffs on his head.
That's the actual description.
And I changed it to large, hard-breathing man,
face like a fish, dull, staring eyes,
and hair that had obviously been arranged by a dying relative.
[ Laughter ]
Which kills every time.
And I don't even lean into it. I just throw it away.
And I'm not allowed to change it 'cause it's too funny.
-Well, you know what?
I always thought somebody could have done a punch-up pass
on Dickens, you know?
Just add a few more jokes. -Yeah, I know.
-He loves the great comic description of stuff,
but he doesn't really go for the line.
I'm sometimes leaning into his lines to make them
pop out a bit more, but now I'm actually taking that away
'cause it's the drama that I love.
You know, people think, oh, yeah, you can do comedy.
But the dramatic ending... Pip is desperate.
He loves this girl, Estella,
but she just doesn't care for him.
And it never happens for him. It's unrequited love.
I've been through that.
A lot of us in the world have been through that.
Some of the very pretty people don't go through that.
[ Laughter ]
But they're all bastards.
-So you had your brother actually adapted this.
And, you know, this is sort of a bridging
of this very long, lengthy work.
Is this something, a skill he had?
Was he surprised when you came to him with this?
-He's probably more creative than me.
He's a cartoonist and a writer.
He wrote a book when he was in his 20s.
And then, my older brother, Mark,
he decided that he wasn't gonna go after that.
And, so, I said to him on this, I was trying to lure him in.
'Cause I know he's creative, and I said,
should we adapt it together?
'Cause I was writing my own scripts at this point.
And he said, yeah, okay.
And then he said, I've done the first part.
There's three parts, I've done the first part,
which is quite a chunk of work.
And then he said, now I've done the second part.
And, so, I just let him go do it.
And now he's done "Hamlet."
"Hamlet" is also on the -- in waiting.
I'm gonna do a one-woman Hamlet as well.
-That's very exciting. -So, uh, these are just there --
And tomorrow on my birthday, I'm doing an extra gig
at the JP Morgan's library.
John Pierpont Morgan, the great --
well, not the great -- I don't know, great is --
Conjecture there. -Top five Morgans. Top five.
I'm not sure what he was like a person, but he left his house.
He didn't stay holding onto it when he was dead.
He let it go.
And I'm in his library tomorrow night.
After my show I'm doing an extra show unplugged.
Just me doing the verbals. No lights and stuff.
-Another thing you're brother helped you out with
that I was obviously aware you did this.
I did not realize he was your translator.
Another thing that I've been in awe of is that you will do
your stand-up act in other languages.
[ Speaking foreign languages ]
Yeah, and encourage anyone,
any stand-up, particularly stand-ups
from all around the world -- Do it in a second language.
It's tough, but particularly in English.
Anyone who's got another language,
if you do it in English, you can tour the world.
I have friends, French kid called [ Inaudible ]
and he played in Helsinki in Finland.
And he was a French guy talking in English.
And the Finnish guys were listening in English
and laughing, and it works.
It's a bridging. English is a bridging language.
It's not our language -- British, English --
It's not yours. It's not the Australians.
It's not the English-speaking Canadians.
It is an open source language just like the computer thing.
Anyone can use English just --
As we do around the world to communicate business,
to help medicine, you know.
English is an easy language to grab hold of.
-With comedy, though, there must be situations
where you have to change -- -No.
-To do a direct translation is working against you.
-No, it's only the references.
Make sure you say KitKat.
'Cause KitKats are around the world.
You know, if I hit them with a KitKat,
then they're, oh a KitKat, that's a little biscuit thing.
But if you say with a Twinkie, they go --
Twinkies, I'm afraid, didn't get outside --
-Oh, so you have to find universal products.
-Yeah, universal comedy.
But if you talk about human sacrifice, everyone know.
[ Laughter ]
You say, basically, human sacrifice was,
okay, the crops are bad, the Gods obviously hate us,
so we're gonna kill Steve.
And then it will probably pick up next year.
And Steve is going, why me?
Well, Steve, I never did like you,
and I'm the witch doctor with the bone through the nose.
And that's how that works.
You talk about human sacrifice, they get in it Russia, in China,
they get it in Istanbul.
It doesn't matter where you are,
people understand what you're talking about, human sacrifice.
It's just a thing that every country understands
that thousands of years ago, we were all idiots,
and all doing it. Being controlled.
-I mean, this is -- I do think in general, you talk about,
sorry, excuse me, themes that are universal.
Things like the universe, religion, like humanity.
Was that where you started as stand-up?
With the big ideas? Or did you work your way there?
-Well, you know, if you start with the big ideas,
People go, boring. -Yeah.
I actually have a theory of the universe.
I've worked out how it works.
And I could be wrong, but I have --
It's not a comedy version of the theory.
I was using it in my last show.
It was basically that everything is circular
and the big bang, the crunch, big bang, big crunch,
No Gods, no one's controlling it,
we're just lucky enough to be here.
Meaning of life, there is no meaning,
but some of us put meaning into life
and some of us take it out of life.
So, this was my thing, but there was no jokes in it, initially.
So I had to put in some jokes along the way
of me trying to say this is my theory
on how the universe works.
-I think, in a very good way, comedy has become a place where
you can have a big idea,
and then if you make sure to put jokes into it,
people are willing to stand around and be explained.
They like having a few jokes to go with it.
-I call it comedy philosophy.
Yeah, it's like we can be comic philosophers if we wish.
We can say, what is it? How does it work?
How do religions work? Is one of them right?
Is the other one right?
Is a god gonna come down and say I'm the God Ping?
And I believe that all soot should be saluted?
That's it, you know?
And you go, oh, I thought -- what about the other god?
No, they're wrong. It's just me.
And then we go, what?
You could talk about God 'cause every religion
to the next religion looks crazy.
And I don't believe in any of them.
I just believe in human beings.
-There you go, that's a pretty good thing to believe in.
-Human beings are here, and I can get in with them.
-Do you remember --
What was your first, what was your first show
in the states?
-First one was, I did the Memphis in May festival in 1988.
-In Memphis, Tennessee?
-In Memphis Tennessee in Overton square,
If anyone's in Overton Square. I actually went back there.
I said I began here and no one cared.
I did my first show -- -No statue? No plaque?
-I was building. Hammering in --
Get that thing out of the way.
It was a car park and now it's [ Inaudible ]
But it's a really good, anyway, I did it there,
and I said I could go back to London.
Maybe I can go via New York. 'cause obviously this thing
of being in New York, and I could worked it out,
I could pay them some money and they said,
Washington Square park is where the street performers perform.
I was a street performer for four years
and that gives me a special, weird ability
to perform out when no one's expecting it.
And in the fountain of Washington Square Park,
that's the first ever show I did in 1988.
I made about $20, and I was pleased.
-Well, 20 bucks in 1988, that's, like, $28 now.
-Exactly, and it's really kicked up.
But also, I could tell everyone back in London
I've performed in New York.
No one ever sees you doing gigs.
I was very funny, too.
-Do you think that doing those as a street performer,
ultimately, any show you do now is so much easier
because you do have people's attention?
-Yes. Yes, it is. But also they demand, you know?
The audience, when you are on the street, can say,
well, this isn't very good. We're going.
But they don't throw things at you.
Not that most audiences throw things at you.
But it's easier when they're there.
The French audience and the German audience are very polite.
And the Spanish was, actually.
The British ones are not.
[ Mimicking audience ]
You know, this kind of stuff.
I don't know if that happens in New York as well.
-They call you a cab from stage?
-Yeah. They say, "Cab for Eddie Izzard," you know.
That was the big joke.
"Say something funny."
I knew I was getting good when somebody heckled me once
and said, "say something funny," and I went, "No."
And then just carried on.
And I go, whoa, okay, my confidence is high there.
I used to do these elaborate putdowns and heckles.
Someone heckles, I'd say, this guy is Kenny.
He's having a lot of problems at the moment.
His doctor said come along and shout at me.
Well done, Kenny.
You shouted out, "Go away,"
but used more of the swear words there.
And make it into a sentence, but keep going.
In five minutes he will be heckling again.
Well done, Kenny. We're with you.
And you impose scenarios on him.
Any stand-up out there can use this, well, yeah, use it.
It's a technique, just impose scenarios.
And then everyone thinks, they know it's not Kenny, but
they go, "It's Kenny again."
"What was that? That wasn't even a sentence.
You're going backwards, Kenny."
It's a lovely little technique to use
when people are shouting things out.
-Well, it is so lovely to have you here.
Thank you so much, and always a pleasure.
That's Eddie Izzard, everybody.
"Great Expectations" playing at
The Greenwich Theater through February 11th.
We'll be right back with more "Late Night."