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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Eddie Izzard Interview in the Times

300 replies

Igneococcus · 25/05/2024 07:18

Written by the sports writer who wrote several comments in the Times over the years supporting transwomen in female sports, so no surprise there is no challenge (that I can see) to Izzard's bletherings:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cbc9589d-2019-434e-8c60-0fa6ac854519?shareToken=2725d49866bad689752abad5ab7d085d

Eddie Izzard: ‘Trans people going back in a shell? Won’t happen’

Eddie Izzard (also answers to Suzy) has migrated from stand-up comedy to serious acting, with solo performances of Great Expectations and Hamlet. But the role the 62-year-old really wants is to be the first trans member of parliament. Interview by Mart...

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cbc9589d-2019-434e-8c60-0fa6ac854519?shareToken=2725d49866bad689752abad5ab7d085d

OP posts:
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Igneococcus · 27/05/2024 21:51

"and with it responsibility for the aforementioned Wallis, who long before his vehicular mishaps wrote a PhD arguing that aliens have visited Earth."

I read some of Wallis' thesis, that's not really what he saying, unless he is saying it in the bit I didn't read. It's an astrobiology one, not a very good one in my opinion , but he's not talking about aliens.

OP posts:
lcakethereforeIam · 28/05/2024 10:34

Archive link for the Sarah Ditum article in today's Times that was posted just up thread

https://archive.ph/w9YFF eh-oop over t' paywall!

I like the point she makes of, frankly batshit, candidates getting elected in constituencies that their respective parties thought they had no choice in. The parties just expected a relatively warm body to stick a rosette on, for the look of the thing rather than leave the seat uncontested. Unfortunately, some of these luna...characters got in! See aforementioned Jamie Wallace, Jared O'Mara, LRM, Scotland may have had a lucky escape with Sophie Sparkles.

murasaki · 29/05/2024 00:04

And unsurprisingly the women characters were particularly poorly done. Can't think why.

dapsnotplimsolls · 29/05/2024 00:12

Damn, you beat me to it!

murasaki · 29/05/2024 00:15

dapsnotplimsolls · 29/05/2024 00:12

Damn, you beat me to it!

Heh, I enjoyed it so much I just had to share!

The Guardian may be sticking with the she ridiculousness, but bad acting seems to be able to be called out.

Datun · 29/05/2024 00:31

Izzard is an offbeat comedian. Who does the occasional acting role.

Why is he suddenly being considered such a high calibre of actor that he can hold an audience spellbound where he plays every part?

I don't think he's ever been thought of as that good an actor, has he?

murasaki · 29/05/2024 00:35

Datun · 29/05/2024 00:31

Izzard is an offbeat comedian. Who does the occasional acting role.

Why is he suddenly being considered such a high calibre of actor that he can hold an audience spellbound where he plays every part?

I don't think he's ever been thought of as that good an actor, has he?

Because he thought the audience would buy into his specialness, regardless of skills. Stunning and brave. .. Even the reviewer admits to being a fan and couldn't stand it.

PotholesAnonymous · 29/05/2024 01:37

Datun · 29/05/2024 00:31

Izzard is an offbeat comedian. Who does the occasional acting role.

Why is he suddenly being considered such a high calibre of actor that he can hold an audience spellbound where he plays every part?

I don't think he's ever been thought of as that good an actor, has he?

He's a really bad actor. He always just sounds like Eddie Izzard speaking someone else's words.

Not a modicum of believability about any of his characters. None. Zilch.

NoWordForFluffy · 29/05/2024 06:22

Why is he suddenly being considered such a high calibre of actor that he can hold an audience spellbound where he plays every part?

The only place this is happening is in his own head!

BackToLurk · 29/05/2024 06:22

I think we’ve established that Eddie Izzard is no Andrew Scott. Or woman.

SinnerBoy · 29/05/2024 06:48

Oh dear, a one star review. I wonder if the Times would give him negative stars?

lcakethereforeIam · 29/05/2024 07:02

The Telegraph have given him 3*s

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to-see/hamlet-riverside-studios-review-eddie-izzard/

I'm not sure why, the reviewer does seem a massive EI fan but struggled to say much that was positive about the performance. I'm thinking 1* because s&b, 1 in the vein of 'never mind the quality look at the width' and 1 as a participation trophy 🏆.

It is quite an achievement memorising the whole play, even if his brother has edited it a bit. Pity he doesn't seem to have stuck the landing.

Hamlet, Riverside Studios, review: A rather average Eddie Izzard fits-all performance

Besides cheering on the admired trans pioneer in a daunting test of stamina, textual focus and gender-flipping, the dividends are minimal

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to-see/hamlet-riverside-studios-review-eddie-izzard

Zeugma · 29/05/2024 07:05

Came on here to see if anyone had posted this. You didn’t disappoint me.

…skips across the stage in Hamlet’s antic state, gurns when Claudius makes his confession, twirls as she transforms from Polonius into Laertes, holds up invisible hand puppets for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and sword-fights awkwardly to the bloody denouement

Gurning, skipping, twirling, and imaginary hand puppets. I can imagine it all too clearly, alas.

Signalbox · 29/05/2024 07:17

How long before he calls the Guardian transphobic?

MouseMinge · 29/05/2024 08:14

I've seen him live a few times, mostly in the 90s, and I can imagine it too, and it's painful. What worked brilliantly as comedy would be truly awful in one of the world's most famous tragedies. I'm sure it wasn't exactly like that but the way the fan describes his "acting"that's all you can see.

I'm not a nice person because I bloody loved reading that review. The arrogance of the man thinking he could carry it off! And he's far too old. Hamlet is a young man's role.

notparticularlycoping · 29/05/2024 08:50

It's always been pretty clear that there's a massive overlap (to the point of possibly being a single Venn diagram circle) between a certain kind of trans male and narcissism. After all it's kind of inherent in wanting to have sex with yourself.

However, I do have to applaud Eddie Izzard for both taking this to new levels and making it so blindingly apparent. So much of what he does (stand up in different languages, marathons, now this) is to prove that he is some kind of uber-being who is superior to everyone else. And I can bet you anything that he wouldn't listen to anyone who would tell him otherwise.

Someone (who isn't me because I've got a shed load of work to get done today) could unpick this more with reference to his past, but I've recently had to work with someone a bit like this, who nearly drove me to a nervous breakdown, hence the username. And the rage when they weren't the best at something was quite a thing to behold.

JeannieDark · 29/05/2024 09:14

Just going to leave this review of EI in Hamlet here!

amp.theguardian.com/stage/article/2024/may/28/hamlet-review-one-woman-juggling-act-exposes-limits-of-eddie-izzards-acting-ability

viques · 29/05/2024 11:26

Oh dear poor old Eddie. Maybe she should stick to running marathons, not speaking marathons.

NoWordForFluffy · 29/05/2024 11:37

I really do wish that he'd stuck to what he's good at. There are so many times in every day life that I'm reminded of one of his jokes. Yesterday I was on a plane, and during the safety talk, 'I don't want top up, I want stay up!' popped into my head.

He was fantastic back then. And now he's ruined it for me and so many more. I can't even watch the old stuff now.

ArabellaScott · 29/05/2024 11:37

https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/theatre/eddie-izzard-hamlet-one-woman-show-theatre-review-b1160734.html

'Now 62, and with little classical experience, this clown wasn’t going to get to play Hamlet unless she did it herself. So she did, and it’s a disaster that diminishes both play and performer.'
...
'The later scenes of the play-within-a-play and the duel, with a lone Izzard struggling to establish multiple points of focus, are so embarrassing I almost cringed up my own fundament.
For female characters she adopts a fluting voice and wafts at her cleavage; for Claudius and old Hamlet she booms. Her crimson-tipped hands become a yapping Rosencranz and Guildenstern: it’s faintly obscene, like watching naked Muppets.'

Eddie Izzard's Hamlet: an act of colossal vanity and hubris

Shakespeare’s work is classic enough to withstand almost anything, but this is a disaster that diminishes both play and performer

https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/theatre/eddie-izzard-hamlet-one-woman-show-theatre-review-b1160734.html

FrothyCothy · 29/05/2024 11:42

If only he’d stuck to being an “action transvestite” of old (to quote himself from Glorious or Dress to Kill, can’t remember which!).

Fenlandia · 29/05/2024 11:49

ArabellaScott · 29/05/2024 11:37

https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/theatre/eddie-izzard-hamlet-one-woman-show-theatre-review-b1160734.html

'Now 62, and with little classical experience, this clown wasn’t going to get to play Hamlet unless she did it herself. So she did, and it’s a disaster that diminishes both play and performer.'
...
'The later scenes of the play-within-a-play and the duel, with a lone Izzard struggling to establish multiple points of focus, are so embarrassing I almost cringed up my own fundament.
For female characters she adopts a fluting voice and wafts at her cleavage; for Claudius and old Hamlet she booms. Her crimson-tipped hands become a yapping Rosencranz and Guildenstern: it’s faintly obscene, like watching naked Muppets.'

Wow what a headline, I had to click through to make sure it wasn't your line 😅Arabella

Fenlandia · 29/05/2024 11:51

lcakethereforeIam · 29/05/2024 07:02

The Telegraph have given him 3*s

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to-see/hamlet-riverside-studios-review-eddie-izzard/

I'm not sure why, the reviewer does seem a massive EI fan but struggled to say much that was positive about the performance. I'm thinking 1* because s&b, 1 in the vein of 'never mind the quality look at the width' and 1 as a participation trophy 🏆.

It is quite an achievement memorising the whole play, even if his brother has edited it a bit. Pity he doesn't seem to have stuck the landing.

"trans pioneer" FFS - what exactly has Suzeddie pioneered that others haven't done, and done better in the past?

murasaki · 29/05/2024 12:51

ArabellaScott · 29/05/2024 11:37

https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/theatre/eddie-izzard-hamlet-one-woman-show-theatre-review-b1160734.html

'Now 62, and with little classical experience, this clown wasn’t going to get to play Hamlet unless she did it herself. So she did, and it’s a disaster that diminishes both play and performer.'
...
'The later scenes of the play-within-a-play and the duel, with a lone Izzard struggling to establish multiple points of focus, are so embarrassing I almost cringed up my own fundament.
For female characters she adopts a fluting voice and wafts at her cleavage; for Claudius and old Hamlet she booms. Her crimson-tipped hands become a yapping Rosencranz and Guildenstern: it’s faintly obscene, like watching naked Muppets.'

Colossal vanity and hubris just nails it.

I suspect Izzard just thinks these reviewers are transphonic meanies, rather than art critics who actually wanted to support him but couldn't in all conscience do so given it was so arse clenchingly bad.