Was there really a time, in 1993, when people had yet to grumble openly about coloured pants smuggling themselves into a white wash? Or the scary music that tells characters in horror films not to go into the woods? Or even, for goodness sake, the personality of cats? (Recording of which is now the primary purpose of the internet.) Izzard became so successful after it, and his aperçus so commonplace, that it's a bit like watching Hamlet: superb, but constantly familiar. The acted encore about computer rage in Glorious is not just one of the greatest bits ever recorded, it has also somehow failed to date in 15 years.īut that's the thing with Unrepeatable today. Want to see a Nobel-quality pull-back-and-reveal? Watch Izzard's Star Trek transporter sequence, the comic equivalent of Ronaldinho's first touch. In all of these, he's just an utter maestro. Indeed it took more than a decade's practice to achieve the polish of Unrepeatable, which was followed by The Definite Article and Glorious, his other two best shows. You'll also see that Izzard was still learning. Look at the hurried drabness of his first and half-forgotten video, Live at the Ambassadors, and you'll see what I mean. Perhaps it is a coincidence, but something crucial seems to disappear when you take the costume away. It is his major talent, seen clearly in this trailer for the later video of Glorious, to be simultaneously ridiculous and cool. He gives himself huge power by being so obviously relaxed in clothes that would make most men feel ridiculous. What it amounts to, actually, is full-blown nerdery, but Izzard's genius is to give this glamour. (Is it too much to call this Proustian? Let's try.) Star Trek, dog walking, swimming lessons: the quotidian, which he scrutinises at great and detailed length. Izzard's territory, on the other hand, is the little things that no one else has bothered mentioning. Because that's what everybody knew about Izzard then: he was "the transvestite comedian", and a phenomenon with it, already famous for his whimsical rabbit-hole monologues and for his gigantic audiences.įunny, how? Some observational comedians – the Disgraceful! ones – get laughs from saying big things that no one else has dared to. Indeed, a large part of this show is about his attempts to convince people how friendly and unthreatening he is, while wearing women's clothes. Slightly sweary, yes, but never very controversial. (By 1997, its screening seemed to be an almost weekly ritual on TV.) The second is that, although standup films like declaring themselves Outrageous! or Uncensored! or Transgressive! or whatever, Izzard has never been "unrepeatable" or anything of the kind. The first is that there cannot be a standup performance in British history that has been more frequently repeated.
The setup: There are two reasons why it is misleading to call this show Unrepeatable.
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