Eddie Izzard: Dress to Kill

"Holy Ghost, this is not an episode of 'Scooby-Doo'"

Let me clarify that I am a stand-up junkie. I collect comedians from all walks of life, and I love each performance that I have ever taped. I saw the commercial on HBO for this one, and I decided that I needed to tape this program, just to have a new category of comedian, the "male lesbian," or transvestite. And a British comic as well.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised on how well spoken and intelligent that Eddie Izzard quickly became one of my favorites overnight. I love the way he sounds improvisational, and how he just plays around with his characters and topics, as well as the audience.

One for the collection, you'll definitely love this one.

This has to be the funniest stand up comedy I have ever seen. Eddie Izzard is a genius, he picks in Brits, Americans and everyone in between. His style is completely natural and completely hilarious. I doubt that anyone could sit through this and not laugh their a** off. Watch, enjoy, it's funny.

I find myself comparing all stand-up acts to this one performance now. Even older recorded performances I once thought were funny just don't seem as funny after seeing Eddie Izzard in this award-winning look at history, language disparities, and Englebert Humperdink...

Eddie Izzard is hilarious. I have seen two of his videos, Dressed to Kill, and Glorious. I laughed the entire time. His comedy is improvisational and he even gets laughs out of the jokes that fall flat. I walked around with my friends for weeks after seeing the HBO version saying "Cake or Death?"

I recently saw the video version of Dressed to Kill and found that there is a great deal of footage that was edited out. You should get this video to get more laughs from this truly amazing man.

Recorded at the Stage Door Theatre in San Franciso one night in 1998. Eddie Izzard delivers over 70 minutes of scatological material to a sold out crowd. He covers everything from the greta escape, the British empire, being a transvestite to Star Wars and puberty. Along the way he even has to deal with a heckler!

By 1998 Izzard had started to try and get into films and had had a huge amount of exposure and had been piled high with awards for his comedy. However his Dressed to Kill show proved that he hadn't lost his edge – even if the material for this show was wheeled out over a US and UK tour, he still managed to make it fresh as if it was all coming to him there and then.

In some ways the fame shows – he enters the stage flamboyantly from a purple rose in a huge dress. However his material is as good as ever and seems no different from his early shows – fame has certainly not gone to his head.

Despite that fact that some of his humour goes straight over the heads of the American audience it is still great – but when did the US ever appreciate surreal UK humour on a massive scale (except in retrospect)? Some of his material is a little stale, but he injects everything with crazy ideas and energy so that even when he goes off track a bit (dealing with the heckler) he still manages to be hilarious!

Overall I hope Izzard never totally goes after his film career and that he'll be on the standup circuit for many, many years to come.