Theatre / Eddie Izzard
Suzy Eddie Izzard on Bristol, coming out, and her ‘molten’ solo Hamlet
“All right, you’re going to come through Bristol if you’re going to go somewhere. It’s all going to be happening here,” booms Eddie Izzard, playfully.
Almost a decade since last performing in Bristol (with the multi-language versions of Force Majeure) the globally renowned comedian and actor, who prefers to go by ‘Suzy’, returns to the city in October.
At those three consecutive hour-long shows (first German, then French and finally English) at Bristol Beacon, she recalls the French gig as being a particular highlight: “Bristol is a very groovy city, so they just grabbed hold of it”.
This time, she will be bringing her unique solo Hamlet performance to the Redgrave Theatre stage, taking on all 23 characters of Shakespeare’s masterpiece single-handedly.
Eddie Izzard, Hamlet – photo: courtesy of Mick Perrin Worldwide
For Izzard, Bristol has always been a “connecting place”. She remembers childhood car journeys across the shiny new Severn Bridge of the 1960s, and pictures the city as both a literal and figurative confluence point where different people, viewpoints, and nationalities collide.
Her return comes as this typically marathon tour nears its 200th performance. And despite what audiences might expect, it’s no laughing matter. “It is the tragedy of Hamlet,” she says. “Some people might think, oh, you’ve done some sort of comedy version. No, no, no, this is Shakespeare‘s Hamlet”.
“It is such a weighty thing”, she adds. “You can get lost under that weight. I feel very at home playing Hamlet, which I didn’t think I would.”
Izzard’s favourite soliloquy to perform is Hamlet’s first – ‘O, that this too too solid flesh would melt’ – which gets straight to the heart of the protagonist’s emotional turmoil.
She always aims to keep Shakespeare’s text from feeling “too solid”, instead choosing to deliver words or phrases slightly differently, or injecting attitude to find meaning in what she calls “curves” within the scenes.
Adopting this approach night after night keeps the text from becoming a joyless ritual for Izzard, who jokingly drones the lines of a pretend prayer to illustrate her point:
“Dah-da, dah-da
Dah-da, dah-da, dah-da
Dah-da, dah-da, dah-duh…”
Instead, maintaining what she calls a “molten state” is what people want to see, she says, and it’s “what makes the actor perform their best”.
However, unlike her stage adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, which received broad critical acclaim, Hamlet has been met with a more mixed reception from reviewers.
Admittedly, that has done nothing to quell audience numbers, with triple-extended runs in New York and multiple sell-out shows both sides of the Atlantic.
Urging audiences to come with “an inquiring mind”, Izzard warns that those with a fixed on how Shakespeare “should” be won’t necessarily click with her version. “People are looking for something different”, she argues, “more real to what Shakespeare did, as opposed to what some Victorians have decided, or what some people of this century have decided.”
Invoking David Bowie, Izzard tells me that being “a little bit out of your depth” is “the right place to do something exciting”.
She also notes that, in playing both male and female characters, she has sought to give them “equal honour”, adding: “I think that’s my job as a trans person to do that”.
Earlier this year, Suzy marked her 40th anniversary of coming out. Looking back, she likens the LGBTQ+ coming out experience to a brave “Arthurian knight’s quest”, and attributes her strong mental health today to living as her authentic self.
Eddie Izzard is back on the road in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore with The Remix Tour (The First 35 Years) less than 10 days after her last Hamlet performance in London – photo: Eddie Izzard
Her message for others is that “it does get better”. She adds: “Standing up and saying who you are doesn’t actually hurt anyone”, despite what she terms “poking and digging” from the right wing, who constantly “try to get everyone angry”.
It’s clear that politics, like iambic pentameter, is never far from her mind. Despite unsuccessful bids to become a Labour candidate in both Brighton and Sheffield in recent years, Izzard tells me that she still harbours ambitions of a political career.
Ever the optimist, she believes in the “great things that the great towns and cities of our country, and any country, can do”.
She also believes in the power of connective places like Bristol to help us to see and experience each other as real people, rather than abstract stereotypes.
Ultimately, the fluidity of Izzard’s “molten” nightly performances parallels her prescription for a better society. “We have to be our own melting pots”, she contends, “and just melt a little.”
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Eddie Izzard: Hamlet is at The Redgrave Theatre on October 15 at 8pm. The show is sold out, but a waiting list is available for signup at www.eddieizzardhamlet.com.
Main photo: Amanda Searle
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