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| Comedy without borders: Eddie Izzard and the language of standup | Comedy without borders: Eddie Izzard and the language of standup |
| (17 days later) | |
| If you've ever tried telling a joke in a foreign language, you'll know the general rule: humour doesn't translate. It's not just that a play on words won't work, it's also because the funny bone doesn't always respond in the same way. | If you've ever tried telling a joke in a foreign language, you'll know the general rule: humour doesn't translate. It's not just that a play on words won't work, it's also because the funny bone doesn't always respond in the same way. |
| But try telling that to Eddie Izzard. The British comedian has been using French to make people laugh for well over a decade. And now, in a damp-smelling dressing room at Berlin's Admiralspalast, with its flaking plaster and a carpet that looks like a relic from the communist East, he reveals German is next on his list. "Ich kann ein bisschen Deutsch sprechen, aber mein Französisch ist besser als mein Deutsch [I can speak a little German, but my French is better]." He then orders a hire car, two beers and a G&T, rattling off the sentences with the speed and confidence of someone who has been speaking it for years, despite only having learned it for two years in school. | But try telling that to Eddie Izzard. The British comedian has been using French to make people laugh for well over a decade. And now, in a damp-smelling dressing room at Berlin's Admiralspalast, with its flaking plaster and a carpet that looks like a relic from the communist East, he reveals German is next on his list. "Ich kann ein bisschen Deutsch sprechen, aber mein Französisch ist besser als mein Deutsch [I can speak a little German, but my French is better]." He then orders a hire car, two beers and a G&T, rattling off the sentences with the speed and confidence of someone who has been speaking it for years, despite only having learned it for two years in school. |
| Izzard, described on posters advertising his first German show as "the funniest Brit", knows the pressure is on. In less than a year he wants to have upgraded his language from "emergency German" to performance standard. His linguist brother is helping him along. "The aim is German and Spanish by next year. Followed by Arabic and Russian. Luckily my brother has the same sense of humour as me." | Izzard, described on posters advertising his first German show as "the funniest Brit", knows the pressure is on. In less than a year he wants to have upgraded his language from "emergency German" to performance standard. His linguist brother is helping him along. "The aim is German and Spanish by next year. Followed by Arabic and Russian. Luckily my brother has the same sense of humour as me." |
| It is part of what might be called the Eddie Izzard outreach project – an attempt, he says, to "kick doors open". "I'm trying to reach out, at a time when all these rightwingers keep saying 'hate everyone. Pull away, separate.' What humans should do is come together. Speaking other languages is a way of reaching people and saying I respect you to want to speak your language." | It is part of what might be called the Eddie Izzard outreach project – an attempt, he says, to "kick doors open". "I'm trying to reach out, at a time when all these rightwingers keep saying 'hate everyone. Pull away, separate.' What humans should do is come together. Speaking other languages is a way of reaching people and saying I respect you to want to speak your language." |
| It fits in with his staunchly pro-European stance as well as, he says, with his longer-term ambition to become London mayor by 2020: "I like people. I'm getting into politics because I like people." But his success obviously depends greatly on his humour crossing borders. | It fits in with his staunchly pro-European stance as well as, he says, with his longer-term ambition to become London mayor by 2020: "I like people. I'm getting into politics because I like people." But his success obviously depends greatly on his humour crossing borders. |
| He is taking his latest show, Force Majeure, to 25 countries on all continents. The most extensive comedy tour to have ever been undertaken, it started in March and will continue into 2014. It has so far seen 51-year old Izzard appear in Latvia, Estonia, Croatia, Serbia, Turkey, Austria, Germany and Scandinavia – places that have rarely hosted a British stand-up comedian. | He is taking his latest show, Force Majeure, to 25 countries on all continents. The most extensive comedy tour to have ever been undertaken, it started in March and will continue into 2014. It has so far seen 51-year old Izzard appear in Latvia, Estonia, Croatia, Serbia, Turkey, Austria, Germany and Scandinavia – places that have rarely hosted a British stand-up comedian. |
| And if the experience has done one thing so far, it is to reinforce his belief that there is no such thing as a national sense of humour. "Certainly not a European one," he says. "There are different types of humour. There's a surreal sense, a more political observational one, and certainly countries have a mainstream sense of humour which refers to Angela Merkel, or national football stars. | And if the experience has done one thing so far, it is to reinforce his belief that there is no such thing as a national sense of humour. "Certainly not a European one," he says. "There are different types of humour. There's a surreal sense, a more political observational one, and certainly countries have a mainstream sense of humour which refers to Angela Merkel, or national football stars. |
| "But alternative and more progressive comedy, like Monty Python [which he has called his main inspiration, with John Cleese in return reportedly describing him as the 'Lost Python'] can be worldwide. It gets a huge reaction, whether I'm in the Balkans or Germany. | "But alternative and more progressive comedy, like Monty Python [which he has called his main inspiration, with John Cleese in return reportedly describing him as the 'Lost Python'] can be worldwide. It gets a huge reaction, whether I'm in the Balkans or Germany. |
| "I phoned Michael Palin and Terry Jones during this tour and I told them: 'You realise you're getting huge reactions' – because I really didn't expect it to be this big." | "I phoned Michael Palin and Terry Jones during this tour and I told them: 'You realise you're getting huge reactions' – because I really didn't expect it to be this big." |
| He recently shared the Berlin stage – the Admiralspalast where Hitler once had a vast purpose-built box from which he would watch operetta – with Michael Mittermeier, a Bavarian comic with a considerable following in Germany. | He recently shared the Berlin stage – the Admiralspalast where Hitler once had a vast purpose-built box from which he would watch operetta – with Michael Mittermeier, a Bavarian comic with a considerable following in Germany. |
| Mittermeier in turn had his own British debut at the Edinburgh fringe last summer, with the show A German on Safari, co-produced by Izzard, which he performed in English. On the back of his fringe success, this month he has a two-week run at the Soho Theatre in London. "Many people at first don't believe in my existence," he says. "They say: 'How can there be such a thing as a German comedian?'. I'm your oxymoron – like a Russian human rights committee … or being a unicorn." | Mittermeier in turn had his own British debut at the Edinburgh fringe last summer, with the show A German on Safari, co-produced by Izzard, which he performed in English. On the back of his fringe success, this month he has a two-week run at the Soho Theatre in London. "Many people at first don't believe in my existence," he says. "They say: 'How can there be such a thing as a German comedian?'. I'm your oxymoron – like a Russian human rights committee … or being a unicorn." |
| Izzard is trying to help 47-year old Mittermeier fight the cliche. "In Britain we are taught our five times table and we learn that Germans don't have a sense of humour. It's considered a fact and doesn't even have anything to do with the war. And if you think about it, it's obviously bullshit. How could you have 80 million people and not one having a sense of humour?" | Izzard is trying to help 47-year old Mittermeier fight the cliche. "In Britain we are taught our five times table and we learn that Germans don't have a sense of humour. It's considered a fact and doesn't even have anything to do with the war. And if you think about it, it's obviously bullshit. How could you have 80 million people and not one having a sense of humour?" |
| Still, the host of Izzard and Mittermeier's Berlin show, Thomas Hermanns, the director of Berlin's popular Quatsch Comedy Club, cannot resist referring to the "humourless German" reputation before the comics take to the stage. "If you don't recognise the joke, just laugh when the others laugh," he advises the 1,700-strong audience. | Still, the host of Izzard and Mittermeier's Berlin show, Thomas Hermanns, the director of Berlin's popular Quatsch Comedy Club, cannot resist referring to the "humourless German" reputation before the comics take to the stage. "If you don't recognise the joke, just laugh when the others laugh," he advises the 1,700-strong audience. |
| Izzard then takes what he refers to as his "universal humour" to the stage. Sporting red-lacquered fingernails (whose motifs include union and EU flags), he veers in his two-hour show from dinosaurs' chatter to the fiendishly complicated German grammar, to Darth Vader trying in vain to order penne all'arrabbiata from the death star canteen. | Izzard then takes what he refers to as his "universal humour" to the stage. Sporting red-lacquered fingernails (whose motifs include union and EU flags), he veers in his two-hour show from dinosaurs' chatter to the fiendishly complicated German grammar, to Darth Vader trying in vain to order penne all'arrabbiata from the death star canteen. |
| Promising the audience – to huge applause – that he'll be back next year to do his show in German, he asks for a display of hands to show how many in the house are German: "Fifty-fifty – that's fine, that's cool," he says. "If Hitler was up in that fucking box he'd hate that." | Promising the audience – to huge applause – that he'll be back next year to do his show in German, he asks for a display of hands to show how many in the house are German: "Fifty-fifty – that's fine, that's cool," he says. "If Hitler was up in that fucking box he'd hate that." |
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