Cake or Death's Groovy News

[from reviewfix.com | thanks Ramona!]

Check out Review Fix Editor-In-Chief Patrick Hickey Jr.’s exclusive interview with Emmy Award nominated director and producer Sarah Townsend, who discusses the trials and tribulations that went into producing her documentary, “Believe,” which is based on stand-up comedian and actor Eddie Izzard.

You can listen to the interview by clicking the link below:
Sarah Townsend Interview

[from hemeltoday.co.uk]

On September 24, 25, and 26, three of the UK’s best loved comedians, Eddie Izzard, Dyaln Moran and Reginald D Hunter, will take to the stage together in the glorious surroundings of St Albans Verulamium Park.

For those lucky enough to secure tickets this will be a chance to enjoy one of the very last evenings of the summer in historic style. Tickets for just one of these acts are difficult to come by, but the chance to see all three on the one stage on the one night is a unique, rare and magical experience.

The three-day event, which will take place on the UK’s first purpose built outdoor comedy platform, will have outside bars and food stalls.

Tickets are available at www.hmvtickets.com/events/1055

[from broadwaysbestshows.com | thanks Jean!]

One of the funniest stand up comedians is now on Broadway. British born Eddie Izzard first conquered American audiences with his Emmy winning comedy specials. Eddie talked to Pat Collins backstage about why he is open and honest about a personal topic.

Eddie Izzard’s entrance on ‘The Late Late Show’ (weeknights, 12:37AM ET on CBS) was mildly reminiscent of Tom Cruise’s appearance on ‘Oprah.’ But did Cruise lose his breath? Izzard jumped up and down on the host’s couch chairs, at one point diving over the back.

“I was just about to [read] the tweets and emails — I don’t suppose I could persuade you to help me?” asked Craig Ferguson. Through panting gasps, the comedian replied, “No, I’m exhausted.”

“I’ll fill in some time while you get your breath back,” said Ferguson. He grabbed a harmonica and began playing a lonesome tune.

Izzard picked up on it and started doing some improv: “It’s a cold night, Sarge — cold night here in the trenches.” The host added, “That’s right, there youngen, but don’t you worry ’cause I got here me mouth organ.”

[from hollywoodreporter.com]

High-profile premieres will include Richard Levine’s “Every Day” starring Live Schreiber, Helen Hunt and Eddie Izzard; Aaron Schneider’s “Get Low” with Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek and Bill Murray; Don Roos’ “Love and other Possible Pursuits” with Natalie Portman and Lisa Kudrow; John Wells’ “The Company Men” starring Tommy Lee Jones, Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper, Maria Bello and Kevin Costner, plus John Madden’s “The Debt” with Helen Mirren and Sam Worthington.

> REST OF ARTICLE

[from contactmusic.com]

EDDIE IZZARD, DAVID WALLIAMS and SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH have been honoured by the British Scout Association for their inspirational charity work.

The trio was among 15 heroes who received special Scout badges as the traditional boys’ organisation celebrated its 103rd birthday.

The two funnymen have raised money for Britain’s Sport Relief and Comic Relief charities by taking on gruelling challenges recently; Izzard ran 1,100 miles (1,770 kilometres) across the U.K. in 51 days last summer (09) and in May (10), Walliams completed a 1,000-mile (1,609-kilometre) charity bike ride.

Other recipients of the special badge included comic James Corden and pop band Scouting For Girls.

[from Backstage.com]

Eddie Izzard is best known as a transvestite standup comic. He is also a film, television, and Tony-nominated dramatic actor. He’s a political activist for Britain’s Labour Party; within 10 years he expects to run for mayor of London. Also an endurance athlete, he recently completed 43 marathons in 51 days to benefit Sport Relief, a charity that benefits the poorest and most vulnerable populations in the U.K. and across the globe.

Currently he is performing on Broadway, replacing James Spader in David’s Mamet’s “Race,” and as Izzard sees it, all the pieces of his life inform one another, incongruous as they may seem. “In politics you have to pay attention to detail and be precise, and that’s especially useful for Mamet’s language,” Izzard says in his dressing room before a performance. “My own diction had gotten sloppy, which works for me in my standup act. But in politics you have to articulate, even overarticulate, and that’s also helpful for Mamet. The challenge in doing Mamet’s language is to get its rhythm and then the sense of what’s being said across to an audience.” The actor speaks a perfect American English in the role.

Izzard’s years as a standup comic have served him well too. “It teaches you to be in the moment, and that’s the key to all acting,” he says, adding that it gives you looseness and flexibility. Still, the comic may go for the easy laugh, and that’s a danger in a straight play. “Comedy has to serve the story and come out of the character, and if that’s not happening—even if it’s interesting—we can’t do it,” he says. As the conniving, amoral attorney in “Race,” he plays “a man who has lost his soul,” Izzard reflects. “He was an idealist who ended up poor and he didn’t like it. He’s run out of everything that gives a fuck. Yet he still wants to win and he’s always a showman.” “Race” explores the emotionally charged dynamics of three lawyers (two black, one white) defending a white man accused of raping an African-American woman.

One of the many elements that drew Izzard to “Race” was the chance to perform for a racially mixed crowd, which is rare on both sides of the Atlantic and, he says, virtually nonexistent at his standup performances. He was last on Broadway in the 2003 Roundabout production of “A Day in the Death of Joe Egg,” and the audience was overwhelmingly white and subscription-based, or what he dubs “conscription”-based.

Audience demographics aside, for Izzard the story and director take precedence over all considerations, including financial. “Money is secondary,” he says. “If cash comes first, you make stupid decisions.” Nevertheless, he has a fondness for film work in general and television work in particular. He loved doing the FX series “The Riches,” playing a con artist, because of the intensity of the process—specifically, shooting each 45-minute drama in seven days.

He is every bit the risk taker and consistently tries to overcome challenges and fears—the more daunting the better. He was terrified of flying and therefore learned to fly. He doesn’t like to read fiction, he is dyslexic, and he finds memorizing lines a stumbling block. Thus his goal is to perform in Shakespeare and do more Marlowe (he has already tackled Marlowe’s “Edward II”). His ideal roles are Iago and Richard III. “I think of myself as an actor-comedian,” Izzard says. “But I’m more experienced as a comedian.”

An Androgynous Transvestite

Born in Yemen—where his father was an accountant and his mother a nurse—Izzard grew up in Northern Ireland, Wales, and the south of England. His mother died when he was 6, and he and his elder brother were sent to boarding school, where he mastered the art of the stiff upper lip. He also fell in love with the world of Monty Python, its anarchy and wit. Izzard toyed with the idea of performing. Still, at Sheffield University he studied accounting and financial management. He excelled in these courses but dropped out of school after one year, determined to launch a career in comedy. Making ends meet wasn’t easy, though he refused to take a regular job. “I was a waiter for three weeks,” he says. “When one waiter asked me what my plans were and I said to act, he said, ‘Oh, no one gets to be an actor.’ I didn’t want to be around people like that. I felt I was going to do it or die. I burned my bridges.”

Izzard honed his comedy skills at the competitive Edinburgh Festival, where he appeared 12 times. “I did three years of sketch comedy, four years of street performing, and five years of standup,” he recalls. Performing solo on the streets was where he learned how to improvise, ad-lib, and make decisions on the hoof. Izzard’s free-associative standup comedy is not scripted. “I have an innate suspicion of the written word,” he says. “I write it all down in my head and then I workshop it endlessly.”

He did not incorporate his transvestitism into the performances until he started doing standup. He knew it was a risky move, but as a comic—unlike an actor playing a part—he was determined to be himself “turned full on,” he asserts. Still, his transvestitism has an almost androgynous flavor. His nails are painted and he sports makeup and jewelry, yet his voice, gait, and persona are masculine. He has defined himself as a “male lesbian, “male tomboy,” and “action transvestite.” It’s a “confusing sexuality,” he acknowledges, adding that his transvestitism might have gotten in the way of his landing certain dramatic roles. “But when I ran 43 marathons in 51 days, that’s more in the ‘boy’ area, and that’s got to figure somewhat in the producer’s mind. I’m obviously not just spending my time being camp. I’m not camp at all. I’ve pushed through barriers.”

He is hoping to do that in the political arena too, though he would not be the first elected official who has an “alternative sexuality,” he says. But his larger ambition is to help forge a truly cooperative universe where nationalistic boundaries have become blurred: “I want the world to be a giant melting pot like Manhattan.” It’s no accident that he has mastered French, German, and Russian and has, indeed, performed his shtick in all of those languages. Nonetheless, he is not prepared to say what the hallmark of his administration would be if elected. “If I knew that, I’d be running now,” he asserts.

Should his political career take off, he concedes, his acting would have to be put on a back burner. Many would disagree, suggesting politics takes performance art to a whole new level.

“Race” runs through Aug. 21 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 W. 47th St., NYC. Tickets: (212) 239-6200 or www.raceonbroadway.com.

OUT TAKES

-Made his West End debut as the lead in David Mamet’s “Cryptogram,” and played Lenny Bruce in Peter Hall’s West End production of “Lenny”

-Appeared in “Secret Agent,” “The Avengers,” “Ocean’s Twelve,” “Ocean’s Thirteen,” and “Valkyrie”

-Has performed to sold-out crowds at Madison Square Garden in New York and the Wembley Stadium in London

-Is the subject of the Emmy-nominated documentary “Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story”

[thanks Jean!]

[from Liz Smith]

THE PLAYWRIGHT David Mamet is not someone whose work I ever want to miss. His kind of cynical wisdom onstage in his serious plays never fails to draw shocked laughter from the audience that can dissect the wisdom in his contempt. I think, for instance, that the very profane and shocking language of “Glengarry Glen Ross” turns that play into an American masterpiece. It’s like listening to perfect serious music.

And while I didn’t much like his out-and-out comedy spoof of the Bush presidency, titled “November,” which starred the talented Nathan Lane, I am very taken with his serious dramas. So I was late getting to his latest at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. “Race,” which Mamet directed, had already lost three of its major actors retaining only the popular Richard Thomas and adding new shocks in the persons of Eddie Izzard, Dennis Haysbert and the dazzling leading lady, Afton C. Williamson.

“Race” says it all, taking race relations to a new high (or is it a new low?). The setting is the big conference room of a law office. The client is a wealthy, white, spoiled WASP, a man to whom nobody has ever said “No!”

The play opens with two partners, Izzard and Haysbert, trying to talk this rich client out of their representing him, trying to show him that he’ll probably be found guilty of raping a black woman and that he most likely can’t win. Izzard is his quirky self, off-hand, brilliant and shrewd. Haysbert is large, forbidding, dispassionately full of hatred, elegance and contempt.

Interestingly enough, though, the play functions on the question of race; these two partners, one white, one black, never tell us anything much about their relationship to one another. They are simply out to win, to make money, to dash the competition – and they are as one – in looking down on intelligences other than their own, very sure of themselves. Their gorgeous law clerk, Ms. Williamson, seems to be a match for both of them.

You’ll be dying to know what happens in “Race.” Who wins, who loses, who forces who into a corner! All the most corrupt factions of what you love in “Law & Order” are here in this, the law part. It’s fascinating.

I thought the four actors were all splendid, Mr. Haysbert, who is familiar to us on TV as the president in “24,” makes his stage debut … Mr. Izzard, who keeps burying the fact that he is such a great actor under his comic façade, is irresistible as the partner-bastard. (Maybe you saw him in the offbeat series drama about white gypsies in America – “The Riches.” Unbelievably good!) Ms. Williamson is a find; great to look at, queenly and imperious in her intelligence – and in her morals too. But I was really overwhelmed by the considerable talents of Richard Thomas. The Playbill says this TV idol from the long-ago “Waltons” has been on Broadway for 51 years! Here, his rich man is a masterful, prissy, self-contained, confused, conflicted, well-tailored mess. It is quite a portrait.

“Race” is another riveting David Mamet play, full of horrible laughs, guilt, truths, pragmatism run wild and a shocking ending. Don’t miss it.

And I really mean – don’t miss it! This fabulous show closes on August 21. Run – don’t walk – for tickets.

[from nytimes.com]

ON a breezy, clear summer morning, Eddie Izzard — the British actor, comedian, transvestite and aspiring politician — took a trip to Ellis Island. He’d wanted to go ever since he first set a stiletto-heeled foot in this country in the 1990s, but never got around to it.

“I would have absolutely been one of those people who got on the boat to the New World,” said the goateed Mr. Izzard, 48, who is starring on Broadway in David Mamet’s “Race,” and whose documentary about his life, “Believe,” was just nominated for an Emmy. “And if they didn’t let me in, I would have jumped overboard.”

This time, Mr. Izzard, who is spending the summer in New York during his Broadway stint, was determined to see the centerpiece of American immigration, which is why he was on a late-morning ferry, slathering sunblock on his neck and savoring the skyline. He had traded his girlie wear for black jeans, boots, blue blazer and sunglasses, and wore only a hint of foundation on his face. Not that he looked like he’d just stepped out of the Nebraska cornfields; still, for the moment anyway, he might have been just another tourist taking iPhone shots of the Statue of Liberty.

“Funny that France gave that to the United States,” he said, admiring the statue. “What did the U.S. give them in return?”

It was a good question. But then, most of Mr. Izzard’s observations are dead-on. That is a large part of his acclaim; he’s known for his political and historical humor, for his accents and mimicry, for leapfrogging from topic A to topic Q, for being, as John Cleese once anointed him, the “Lost Python.”

He is also known for his social conscience (he has raised more than $400,000 for a British charity) and his athleticism. He is a marathon runner and is contemplating triathlons (“Animals in the wild are lean, and I think we should be, too”).

He speaks and performs stand-up routines in German and French (he uses the A.T.M. in French “to keep my brain working) and is planning to learn Russian.

And his politics are passionate; earlier this year, Mr. Izzard, who is a Social Democrat, voraciously campaigned for the Labour Party across England, Scotland and Wales. He plans on running — “standing,” in British parlance — for mayor of London or a seat in Parliament “sometime around 2020, if not bang-on.”

Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a more engaged visitor on the 27.5-acre island; he wanted to see and do everything. “We’re here, we might as well,” he said, slipping a headset over his ears. “Look at that,” he said, reading a display. “Those in first class were allowed to walk right off the ship. Those in steerage were stopped. I never knew that.”

He wandered up the stairs and into the Great Hall, the soccer-field-size room where new immigrants waited for admittance into the country. Mr. Izzard, who was born in Yemen and raised in Northern Ireland and England, moved from exhibit to exhibit, taking in everything: a gurney (“in England we call that a trailer”), a buttonhook used to inspect eyes for infections like trachoma.

He glanced at a manifest of impossible-to-pronounce last names. “This would be a funny bit,” he said. He pantomimed an immigration officer holding a clipboard. “Here we are at Ellis Island. ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Smith.’ ‘What?’ ‘Smith.’ ‘Again?’ ‘Smith.’ ‘O.K.— Yacjgdaw.’ ‘You?’ ‘Jones.’ ‘What?’ ‘Jones.’ ‘Wazinskawnsky.’ It’s the reversal.”

Every so often a fan approached. “Aren’t you that bloke who did all those marathons?” “I love you in ‘The Riches’!” “ ‘Dress to Kill’ is my favorite!”

Mr. Izzard was polite, asking their names, where they were from, posing for pictures. Still, he seemed slightly hesitant, as if he were embarrassed by the attention — odd for a guy whose iPhone screen saver is a shot of himself in heavy makeup, a sparkly shirt and elbow-length black gloves.

When a reporter suggested his fans see him on Broadway, he demurred. “They only have a few days — go see a big musical like ‘Billy Elliot,’ ” he said. “If you have more time, see my show.”

After a while, he abandoned the audio tour — it was difficult to follow, the walkways weren’t well marked — and latched on to a group tour with Jesse Ponz, a park ranger. Mr. Ponz explained the history, pointing to the medical facilities where those who were refused admittance were kept, as he led his charges through the bowels of one building and into another. Mr. Izzard was rapt.

“Did people escape?” he asked, nodding toward New York Harbor.

“We’ve heard of that,” Mr. Ponz said. “But the current was pretty strong.”

“It’s like Alcatraz,” Mr. Izzard said. “People said you couldn’t swim, but now they have an Alcatraz triathlon.”

A woman piped up. Actually, she said, prisoners in Alcatraz were allowed to shower with hot water so they wouldn’t acclimate to the cold water.

“Did you hear that?” Mr. Izzard said later. He was almost glowing. “You never know what you’re going to learn. That group was exactly like the people who came over here. A mix of everybody.”

At the end of the tour, Mr. Izzard thanked Mr. Ponz, who, as it happened, is a great fan. He offered to take Mr. Izzard around privately, and Mr. Izzard happily accepted. As they wandered around the museum, the two men debated the merits of disco versus punk, the War of 1812, Winston Churchill (Mr. Izzard, who is dyslexic, is listening to a Max Hastings Churchill biography), capitalism and immigration.

“I don’t know what it’s like in the U.S., but immigrants in the U.K. do the jobs the citizens won’t do,” Mr. Izzard said.

Five hours later, Mr. Izzard was heading back to Manhattan, with a little less than 120 minutes to spare before he had to be on stage.

“I do find history fascinating, I find people fascinating, and I’m quite good at standing somewhere and taking out all the new stuff and imagining people coming in,” he said, looking at the city unfold before him. “And I would have been with them.”