Cake or Death? Eddie Izzard’s Remix Tour Hits Brighton

Whilst ‘Greatest Hits’ albums are nothing new, touring them seems to be a thing of evolution and certainly something for majors to be rubbing their hands together over. In the last few years we’ve seen more artists taking their most famous albums back on the road after 20 years (My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, Badly Drawn – Boy The Hour of Bewilderbeast, etc). More recently Taylor Swift brought this to new heights with her *Eras Tour, boasting no less than 44 of her handpicked favourites over the course of 10 acts and 3 hours. Not just giving fans what they actually want but no doubt an incredible profit pedal (*yes thanks, I have my TS tickets for 2024 in the bag and on the credit card).

For comics and stand-ups, however, it’s quite a different story. Whilst still very much the same sort of set-up i.e touring entertainers taking to the stage, performing to a live crowd; rehashing old jokes from one tour to another is pretty much career suicide. As an audience we want comedic material to be completely fresh, unique and unpredictable. No comedian wants a review that says ‘similar to last time’ or ‘guessed the punchline’. Eddie Suzy Izzard, however, has decided to get on the greatest hits bandwagon with her current ‘Remix Tour’. Unbeknown if this has been directly influenced by Taylor or not, Izzard’s Remix show is, in her own words, made up of “The ones I like the best”. Taking her very best bits from her 35-year stand-up career it’s a totally unapologetic recycle of her material with a special focus on her iconic collections from throughout the 90s. Enter here, my personal connection to all this.

We possibly all have our cornerstones of culture growing up, those key reference points that go on to shape our humour, our vernacular and our overall approach to life. The 90s is where I lived out my teens. They saw me go from loving horses to loving Take That, to finding Nirvana (short-lived) and then one day, around 14 years old, I get introduced to Eddie. A friend had the VHS of Definite Article which we passed between a small devoted circle of us. It struck a certain chord. Until then my main role models had been the more traditional family members, teachers and Blue Peter presenters. But this was a grown-up talking to me in a different way. A way that combined history, politics and pop culture with a side of animals and jam, all delivered via what felt like the rambling internal monologues of a one-man pantomime. Ultimately though, I found it staggeringly hilarious

Izzard’s string of 90’s standup collections – Unrepeatable (1994), Definite Article (1996), Glorious (1997), Dress to Kill (1998) and Circle (2000), brought a certain foundation to my ways of understanding and coping with the world. His take on things was wildly surreal but somehow totally relatable. It was a history lesson, a take on current affairs, an examination into the lives of other species we share this earth with. And it’s all staggeringly hilarious. Not only did I become so utterly absorbed into her world, but I developed my own world around it and still to this day communicate in ‘Izzardisms’ which no doubt go completely unnoticed by most people, and (what I hope to be) hugely appreciated by those ‘in the know’.

I take one of my oldest friends and fellow Izzard disciples to the show with me. As the intro music plays – the very same opening music to her 1997 Glorious show – it feels like a homecoming. I like to think for both me and Izzard herself. As she enters the stage, she’s just the same. In the most gorgeously familiar way. A true reunion and those feelings of nostalgia, loyalty and security all rush in. The hits come thick and fast. We move from god (not really there) to dinosaurs, to Romans and Caesar (salad). Bees and jam, Mrs Badcrumble, Darth Vader in the canteen and Cake or Death. This show is about favourites. Bringing back the best bits of an extensive career. Hearing the crowd react raucously to their own personal highlights, myself included, is a testament to how this material carries and has stood the test of time. We’re enraptured. Time passes too quickly. My face aches from laughing. Overpriced bag of wine gums aside, this could be the cleanest fun I think I could have.

The show feels like a special one for Izzard. The closest to her hometown of Bexhill On Sea, she makes a few more personal references to her upbringing, points in her career, and how she’s gone around the world workshopping and performing the entire show in French and many other languages. To me this way she feels even more human, more relatable, like we’re just a few rows away from being in the pub catching up after a few years apart. The closing moments of the show dovetail into Izzard’s current campaign to run as Labour MP for Brighton Pavillion. At the time of this review, Brighton had the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas holding this same position, a huge accolade and step forward. However, as she steps down the question is raised of what real power this one seat can hold on its own. The vision of a local(ish) transgender woman, experienced activist labour candidate moving to pick up the baton surely would’ve been tempting for right-on Brighton to consider.

Photo above from Selina Brighton Hotel & Cowork

I wake up in my hotel room the next morning looking right out onto the tumultuous sea, the defiant old pier just off to my left, Brighton’s dazzling i360 spier jutting skyward just to the left of that. Having lucked out with a beautiful seafront room brings all the reflection and emotive thinking you want it to. It doesn’t escape me in this moment the line that’s drawn from my early Izzard education as a teen, moving on to study at Sussex University in Brighton and to now, re-watching old material delivered in the same way, with the same messages that somehow seem more pertinent and resonate even deeper. As Izzard now continues to move into politics (having previously run for Labour’s candidate for Sheffield Central) I so want other people to see in her what I do. To be absorbed into her world. The surreal and the sublime. Both modern and ancient worlds are brought together in a lesson for the future. Izzard doesn’t believe in God and with that, doesn’t believe things will get better on their own / because of god. She vows to take that part on herself and double-up, (re-double-up)’ their efforts for change.

It’s something of a guilty admission, but I’ve never really found it easy to get along with politics. From a young age, I found it hard to follow and understand. I could see it could make the grown-ups around me quite cross at times. At times I’ve avoided too many in-depth conversations about it, just about holding my own, desperately hoping not to be found out for not knowing all the nuances and intricate implications a certain policy proposed by a particular politician may or may not have depending on who you are, where you live, what colour your roses are. But I wonder how different all that would have been for me, had there been someone I’d wanted to sit and listen to in the same way I do with Eddie. Someone truly inspirational. That I might feel some sort of connection with, knowing that with connection comes trust, belief and change.

Izzard is my own icon, my upbringing, my escapism but also my education. It might take a few people a bit longer to tap into her narrative. Or it might be that so many more people are ready to step into her world, her thinking and vision. To see how her surrealism can actually, make so much sense. I was excited (and slightly) jealous of Brighton to have this opportunity and to see where it all could go.. To see where she could take things. Especially after such a career such as hers and at this time now, where she’s ready to bring to the stage her very best bits.

(Jump back into mid-December) it was announced at the start of this week that Izzard was not successful in winning the Brighton Pavillion labour seat this time. At present, she’s made no public comment but I saw the BBC had printed something from a TV appearance on Lorraine (icon) which I hope remains the same today as it did back in March;

“I’m going into politics, I’m going to push and push until I become an MP… I’m just going to carry on… I want to go in because I can communicate, I have a vision of the future – which is everyone has a right to a fair chance in life.”

We stayed at the Selina Brighton, in a spectacular seafront facing room looking straight out onto the old pier.