Suzy Eddie Izzard: British stand up comedian and performer on bringing two tours to NZ, Hamlet and The Remix Tour

Comedy legend Eddie Izzard’s material has taken on a life of its own.

Now going by Suzy Eddie, she doesn’t just tell jokes, she’s rewritten history.

The comedian, actor, and politician has captivated audiences with a career that has constantly pushed forward, and now she’ll be captivating Kiwi audiences, gracing our stages later this year.

She’s bringing two shows to our shores that couldn’t be more different, the Remix Tour in May, and a one-person performance of Hamlet in July.

“Just like Shakespeare went from his comedies to his dramas and tragedies, so am I,” she told Newstalk ZB’s Jack Tame.

The Remix Tour has Izzard performing highlights from her 35 year career in stand up comedy, and with so much material to pick from, every night will be unique.

“It lives – that's the thing,” she said.

“It lives as opposed to, oh it’s old and we pull it out and it’s the old prayer from before – it's got essences of that, but also new stuff as well.”

In contrast, Hamlet is a fair bit more structured – Izzard unable to shift things around from performance to performance, but that doesn’t make it a traditional rendition.

By its nature, theatre requires an audience to buy into the action more than with film or television, having to use their own imagination to fill in the gaps, and Izzard’s is no different.

“You get to concentrate, you get to see very clearly the text, the beauty of the poetry, the characters interplay,” she explained.

“We've worked very hard on moving ... the juxtaposition of me moving between different characters. There’s a subtle change – these are not caricatures, these are characters.”

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