Eddie Izzard: Dress to Circle (2002) Movie Script
Easy on the music.
Oh, that was good.
Hello, Paris, welcome to my show.
I'm Eddie Izzard,
I'm an English comedian, or...
Yes, I am English.
I was born in Yemen,
so I'm an Arab as well.
Maybe a "beur".
I'm also a transvestite,
that's a bit different.
Are there many transvestites
in France?
Yes, of course!
Not many.
There aren't many in England.
There are transvestites
but they don't admit to it.
It's a secret.
It's hard to tell everyone,
to be honest,
"I'm a transvestite," it's hard.
But there are transvestites here,
in Pigalle,
but they're a bit whorish.
I'm a different kind of transvestite,
I'm an executive transvestite.
It's a new concept, it's new for
the English, the Welsh, the Scottish,
the Americans.
I've done a big tour with this show,
everywhere everyone says,
"Transvestite? What's that?"
And transvestites, we're not
drag queens, we're a bit different.
Drag queens are
from the gay community,
and that's great.
Then there's a little stream...
and the transvestites live here,
next-door to the drag queens.
We're cousins.
There is a difference,
because drag queens are gay,
they like men,
and transvestites like women.
That's... It's true.
We like women.
We're like male tomboys.
Or perhaps like...
I'm a male lesbian.
It's a good word
to both explain and confuse.
So that's my sexuality.
My comedy... There's no connection
between my comedy and my sexuality,
I'm a transvestite
and I'm a comedian.
There's another little stream,
with comedy here.
It's like a man who's gay
and works in a bank.
There's no connection there.
And also the word "travesti"
is difficult,
because in England
the word is transvestite
and it's a word that has
a bad reputation everywhere.
It's hard. "I'm a transvestite,"
it's not...
You don't write "I'm a transvestite"
on your CV.
I play tennis, I've got A levels,
I'm a transvestite.
Maybe not.
But the word...
In England it's hard, I told
everyone, they all went "Eugh,"
but then, I have a personality,
"He's OK, he's a good bloke."
Eddie Izzard, transvestite, fine.
But I arrive in France
and [heard that... I learned that
the word "travesti" - transvestite -
means a travesty.
We have the word travesty as well,
in the English language.
The word travesty means
a catastrophe.
I arrived in France and discovered
that I was a catastrophe.
Hello, I'm a catastrophe.
"Hey, check out the catastrophe
over there."
"I reckon he's a catastrophe."
Hard or what?
But that's OK
because I enjoy having a quest.
I have a quest.
Is that right?
Sometimes I'll have to ask.
Because if I make a mistake
in French,
occasionally I don't realise.
I say the line
and there's a big laugh
and it's like,
"What? What did I say?"
Did I say I wanted
to shag my grandmother?
That's me.
For five years I've wanted
to do a show in French
because I'm a New European,
I'm a third millennium kinda guy.
I learned French...
Strange show, eh?
Always "Is that right? Yes, yes."
Everyone here is a teacher
and I'm a pupil.
Lots of teachers. Shit!
There are French people here
and I think English speakers too.
So if you're French -
I'm going to do a little test -
if you're French, go "whoo",
If your first language is English,
go "whuur".
Maybe 50-50, but the English were...
It's not the English embassy.
It's always the same.
In New York it's the same.
I said to them, "Who's American?"
"Who's from Britain?"
European?
I am European!
Yes. So I learned French at school,
and the first sentences I learned
are a bit tricky to bring up
in conversations.
They're sentences like
"the cat is near the chair."
Not a problem - there are cats in
France, there are chairs in France,
so every time I saw a cat
I pushed the cat
in front of the chair.
I've got a great idea.
Stay there.
The cat is near the chair.
No, the cat is near the chair.
Very near.
Very close.
Not far from.
Almost...
Almost at the chair.
Perhaps on... No, not on,
but near the chair.
Yeah, so?
So what?
Nothing.
OK, cat, off you go.
And another sentence was...
"the mouse is under the table."
That's harder.
I've never seen a mouse in France.
It's hard.
Another phrase is
"the monkey is on the tree."
On the branch, sorry.
The monkey is on the branch.
That's fucking hard.
Not many monkeys.
I've never seen a monkey.
No monkeys. No monkeys whatsoever.
On the Eurostar, no monkeys.
Gare du Nord, no monkeys.
At the bar, at the tobacconist,
no monkey.
Maybe in the zoos, but I haven't
visited the monkeys... the zoos,
We go to the hotel to reserve a room.
Do you have a room, sir?
Of course we do, this is a hotel!
Fine.
I'd like one room with a big bed
and a sea view.
And with a bathroom with a...
what's the word?
With a spider.
Spider?
The spider is more expensive.
OK, with a more expensive spider.
It's a joke, OK?
They think I've cocked it up, but no.
It's a mime joke.
You have to think very quickly
with me.
Room 42, sir.
OK, no problem.
But the cat is near the chair,
the mouse is under the table
and the monkey is on the branch.
With the spider?
There's a mouse here? A cat?
The cat's near the chair?
The monkey is on the branch?
Where is the monkey?
The monkey is on the branch.
Is the monkey in the room?
The monkey is not in the room.
Michele is in the room.
With Mr. Didier.
And Jacques Chirac.
It's a menage-a-trois.
- With the spider?
- No, that's a mnage-a-quatre.
It's very hard to use
those three sentences.
In the end I had to turn up in France
with a cat, a mouse
and a monkey in a bag.
I brought a table and chair
and we set ourselves up in a wood.
We stayed there
until someone turned up.
Hey, someone's coming.
Quick, positions!
Near the chair, near the chair.
You want some cheese?
On the branch. Stay there.
Come here!
Oh, shit.
I'm having a heart attack!
I've hurt my leg! I've lost my leg!
"What? What's going on?
"What's going on?"
- Oh, nothing.
- "Are you having a heart attack?"
No, I thought I was having one
but no, it's... I have a neck.
A cough! Not a neck.
What's "un cou"?
It's "un toux", yeah?
I just wanted to say, I'm English,
I'm here on holiday,
it's beautiful here, the colours,
the branches.
It's freezing cold, but it's OK -
the parties, the raves,
fucking fantastic.
"But you're a transvestite,
an English transvestite."
Yes, I am a transvestite,
but not a normal one.
I'm an executive transvestite.
An action transvestite,
because I go snowboarding.
"Snowboarding? Great."
Abso-fucking-lutely.
But the cat is near the chair,
the mouse is under the table
and the monkey...
Shit.
The monkey's gone.
Because the monkey knows
I'm not very good at translating
between French and English
so he does things
that are hard for me to translate.
Ah, the monkey's there now -
he's on a bicycle.
He's playing the banjo.
Now he's smoking a pipe.
Now he's giving someone
a blow job. No.
And now he's reading a newspaper.
And now he's doing the Baccalaurat.
We'll have to wait a while.
The Baccalaurat's very hard, yes.
Oh, he's finished, he averaged 90%.
Now the monkey's in the bus.
Look at that! He's in the...
He's driving the bus!
He's driving,
and Sandra Bullock is in the bus!
He has to drive the bus faster than
50 kilometres an hour.
Keanu Reeves is coming!
That's Keanu Reeves in the car.
He throws himself onto the bus,
and Dennis Hopper - so evil.
That's the film Speed.
I'd thought that the film in France
would have to have a new title,
like "La Vitesse!" perhaps.
But no, in France it's called Speed.
And now we have yet another war
between France and England,
the beef war goes on.
Lionel Jospin told the English
to bugger off,
the French... Europe -
the French are more European,
they were the first country,
with Germany,
who were there in the '40s,
in the late '40s
to implement the idea
of a New Europe.
But now, Europe, the government
of Europe, the European Commission
has said English beef is great,
it's fine now,
and France said "No.
"We don't like it,
we don't want to buy, sell the meat."
So it's war once again
between the two countries.
For the cows it's strange, because...
What did I say?
What did I say? What's funny?
What's funny?
There isn't normally
a big laugh there.
What did I fucking say?
It's a bonus.
The cows...
"Vache" is...?
That's funny?
Just the word "vache"?
Friday.
A strange audience here tonight.
They laugh at the word "les vaches".
No kidding.
But we have mad cow disease.
Mad cow, that means
Margaret Thatcher.
Big laugh there.
That half there.
Because our cows eat
other mashed up cows.
In France... "Ecraser"?
Too funny even for me.
Cows in France eat crap.
Sewage.
Like Mr. Magoo.
That's how I remember -
Mr. Magoo, "gouts".
"Oeuf" in English is egg,
and Mr. Magoo...
And between the two - "gouts".
It's a combination of Mr. Magoo
and an egg.
In my head.
It's a weird new European idea,
in England cows eat crushed up cows,
in France they eat crap,
in Germany cows eat
computers that don't work.
In Italy cows eat cigarettes.
In Spain they eat record books.
I don't know.
For the cows, it's shit -
"Hey, you fancy lunch?"
"No, not for me,
the food's normally shit."
"Well, on the lunch menu today
you've got...
"your brother, mashed. Not bad.
"He comes well done.
"We have crap.
"Oh, it's French crap,
it's fantastic.
"No vegetables with that.
"And we have apple tart."
"Apple tart? Maybe...
"No, I'll have the crap."
But this hatred, this constant hatred
between France and England -
why?
I've done this show, this tour...
I've toured in England, Scotland,
in Wales, in Ireland,
and I've asked everyone - because
there is a war on with the meat -
do you hate the French?
The Scottish, no,
ho problem with the French.
The Welsh, no,
a bit of a problem with the farmers,
but they hate...
What a hard verb!
They hate the English more,
so the Welsh hate the English.
The Irish,
ho problem with the French,
but the English hate the French,
they hate the Scottish, the Welsh,
the Irish, the Germans,
the Americans, the Japanese,
the Chinese,
the Spanish, the Italians,
Africans, every-fucking-body.
I want to ask the French,
just the French,
hot you, not you here in this room,
because you're a great audience,
an alternative audience,
an audience with a brain,
intelligent,
very pretty, things like that.
But generally speaking in France,
do you think
the French hate the English?
Not at all?
Do the French hate the Germans?
Was there a war?
Second World War?
Yes, there was a war.
Do the French hate Americans?
We all hate Americans!
That's the national anthem of Europe.
But hate is a drug for newspapers.
The English papers love hate
because they can start a war
if the French do something.
Because normally, I think the French
probably eat beef,
French beef, German beef, Croat beef.
They can't buy English beef,
and no one notices.
It's just beef.
Put the money down, no problem.
But the farmers, French farmers
are always in a hurry,
very angry all the time.
Whenever something happens
in England, on the telly
we see the farmers in their tractors.
All the way to Calais.
With the straw and a big fire.
The straw's on fire,
"We are farmers!"
It's like Asterix and Obelix.
"We are farmers!" Loads of farmers.
All the English tourists
in their cars,
"Lots of tractors. What's going on?"
"Dunno, I'm just here. It's a party."
But hate is a drug
for English papers.
If there's a problem between
France and England
they say, "The French
are being arseholes, as ever,
"look here, buy this newspaper
and you can read stuff."
And everyone says,
"Ooh, something in the paper today."
That's how it happens.
But I think hate is a drug.
Perhaps we hate
our neighbours the most.
Noisy neighbours who live next door,
they crap in our gardens.
Or perhaps we hate our families
the most.
Every Christmas
we stay with the family,
and after two hours you go,
"This family is shit!"
Like that. And that's why in England
every Christmas,
we have The Great Escape on TV.
I think so,
Because after a day or two
of Christmas,
"Hey, The Great Escape,
I'm gonna dig a tunnel!"
"The kids are
in the garden doing this -
"What's going on?"
"That's Steve McQueen
on a motorbike."
On a bicycle.
But I grew up in the '70s.
I also grew up in the '60s
but for our first ten years
we're all a bit...
In our adolescence
we're a bit more...
In our 20s...
In our 30s...
In our 40s...
In our 50s...
In our 60s, "No, thank you."
In our 70s, "What?"
In our 80s...
In our 90s...
And then we're all the Queen Mother.
She's 99 years old.
99 years old, the Queen Mother.
In England she's an ice cream,
we've got an ice cream called a 99.
It's got a cone, vanilla flavour,
with a stick of chocolate,
that's the 99,
and now the Queen Mother is
an ice cream.
All the children in England when
the Queen Mother's doing her walkies,
saying yoo-hoo,
all the children with their Flakes...
She's 99, she's 99!
It's a good joke for kids.
The family, the English monarchy,
they're called...
their surname is the Windsors.
But their real name is
the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas.
They're German
but they have an English accent,
it's strange.
They... The women in the monarchy
do nothing.
They do nothing.
They live and live and live.
Queen Victoria,
she died at an age of...
160 years old.
She's in a coffin now
but she's still alive, I reckon.
She's a vampire, like Thatcher.
The Queen Mother's 99,
the Queen's 98,
almost the same age.
Prince Charles -
Prince Philip's an idiot -
Prince Charles is a good bloke,
because he works for good causes,
he works very hard for good causes,
for disadvantaged young people
and that's good.
But the Queen, Liz,
she just lives.
I think Prince Charles,
he turns up at Buckingham Palace,
and says to his mother, "Hey, Mum, what
are you doing today?"
"I'm living!"
"And what did you do yesterday?"
"I lived!"
Perfect.
"And what will you do tomorrow?"
"I will live!"
Future.
"And two days ago,
what were you doing?"
"I was living!"
Imperfect.
That's all, that's all she does.
She's still alive.
The monarchy, they open things.
They open buildings - "Here I am,
I'm the monarch, I open this building,
"this shop, this supermarket..."
They're like locksmiths. The monarchy
and locksmiths are almost the same.
"The supermarket door is stuck,
"we'll have to call the King."
Well, the Queen now.
"Hey, Liz, come round with the keys."
"What's going on?
"OK, I've got the keys.
"Go fuck yourself.
"I am the Queen."
I grew up in the 70s,
and I think that in the '70s,
England lost its voice.
We lost our voice.
Before, we had an empire
but by the '70s we didn't have one.
We lost our voice,
we badly wanted to be European,
we were like,
with the head like this,
"What should I do now?
What should we do?"
And empires,
we had an empire in England
because we had lots of flags.
Lots of British flags,
we had lots of boats,
we travelled around the world
and the soldiers arrive with the
flags, they stick it into the beach
and say,
"Now India is part of England."
The Indians say, "What are you doing?
"We're Indian, there are
a hundred million people here,
"you can't put a flag here."
"Do you have a flag?"
"No, we don't, we don't need one."
"No flag, no country."
"That's the law."
But the end of the empires came
at the end of the Second World War.
For the French...
perhaps the Second World War
never happened.
"Second World War?
No, we're on holiday.
"No, I'm not here,
everyone's in Africa.
"Morocco, yeah."
So a tough war.
But Italy...
The Italians are most interesting
people from the Second World War
because they were
the first fascists, in '22,
Mussolini said everyone is fascist,
but the Italian personality doesn't
go very well with being a fascist.
Because we have lots of footage
of the Germans
marching in lines like that.
But I've never seen
Italians marching like that.
I don't think they'd want to do that.
Italians are better on scooters.
Like that,
with the glasses just there.
No helmet, young girl behind.
Always chatting up girls.
They chat up a girl here
with one there.
In '22 Mussolini said, "All Italians
are fascists now. Fascisti!"
No difference.
Mussolini invaded...
Mussolini invaded Abyssinia.
Why fucking Abyssinia?
Italy's there, Mediterranean there,
North Africa...
Abyssinia, a long way away.
All the Italians are saying,
"Why Abyssinia?"
"It's alphabetic."
But now we have Europe,
the new idea of Europe.
For the Scottish, I think they like
the idea of being European,
so do the Welsh and the Irish.
But the English...
It's like a film, a horror film.
Do you say "horreur"?
A horror film by Hammer Horror,
by "Horreur Marteau".
Because the English are always,
"European? Not ere, mister.
"No, there's no Europeans ere, no.
"I'm sorry.
"You're what?
"A European Commissioner?
"Come in, welcome.
"Sit down in the chair there.
"OK, stay there."
"No, no Europeans ere, mister.
"I think."
It's a... It's...
Forget that.
I tried to say the line in my head.
"Like that? No, like that."
Sometimes in English,
when I'm talking,
because I understand English...
I improvise
and I end up at a dead end.
"Oh, shit," and I have to reverse
very quickly.
And then I'm back. I can do that
very quickly in English.
But if in French I'm at a dead end
I have to do a three-point turn.
Sorry.
And that time I was at a dead end
like this -
"Oh, shit."
Nothing in my head.
Yeah!
But I've said to the English,
"We have to be European,
"we have to be
in the driving seat of Europe,
"if not, then in the passenger seat
"because we'll have
the windscreen with a view
"and we can play with the radio."
But at the moment, the English,
we're at the traffic lights of Europe
with a sponge, and there we are.
"Can we clean your windscreen?
"France? Germany? Spain?
"Shit!
"Got any Euros?"
What?
There are fireworks here.
I think at the millennium
you have to have fireworks.
You have... I think you have...
you have fireworks
on the 14th, no, July 15th?
July 14th.
July 14th. For us it's November 5th,
for the Americans it's the 4th...
July 4th?
Yeah, I know.
I've just said that!
It's my show, OK?
Calm down!
What's going on?
Have you got it written down?
Maybe I want to impro...
Vise,
What?
I don't know. That's improvisation.
You don't know,
it's not in your head,
improvisation is here,
it arrives and maybe sometimes
you get a good joke
but sometimes it's,
"What. Then. Hello. Cat. Fine."
And then...
I said to everyone,
"I am a sex beast."
Thank you.
I want to say, I'm not religious.
Oh, no - fireworks, yes.
Fireworks...
I don't think this joke
is working at all.
Sometimes, if you talk too much
in the middle of a joke
when you get to the joke
everyone says, "Fantastic.
"That's a shitty joke."
Forget the joke.
Later I'll say it.
The fireworks.
Maybe.
I'm not religious.
"Religieuse" is a nun, right?
Right.
I'm not religious.
That's it. Thank you.
No, I'm not religious but there are
a lot of gods in the world.
There's the Christian God.
The words "Chretien" and "crtin"
are very similar.
Why is that?
But for me, the concept of
the Christian God isn't the truth.
Because there's the whole universe,
it's enormous,
100 billion galaxies in the universe,
and I think the god Chaos
is the only god of the universe.
With the chaos theory
you have the god Chaos
who created the universe
with a firework.
"I am the god Chaos!"
No tactics, no big plan.
He's got a son, too, called Kevin.
"Kevin, I have created the universe!"
That's how it is for me.
But until...
You have to wait until
the Renaissance period,
the Renaissance is fantastic,
with Galileo.
And Leonardo da Vinci,
the most famous bloke
from the Renaissance.
He did paintings,
anatomical drawings,
he was a scientist,
he invented war machines
and he invented the helicopter too!
He invented a helicopter
which doesn't work.
And I have a connection
with Leonardo da Vinci
because I too have invented
a helicopter which doesn't work.
When I was eight.
It doesn't work at all.
Exactly the same as da Vinci.
Great minds think alike.
A helicopter
which doesn't fucking work.
And the Renaissance period
is fantastic for making films.
You've got Leonardo da Vinci,
Galileo, the Pope,
the Borgias, the Medicis,
lots of murders.
I love films, I've always wanted
to be in films.
In England we have a reputation
for making small films
with small stories.
With good actors, good stories
but the stories are a bit squeezed.
Not squeezed but...
Squeezed? I don't mean squeezed.
Thank you.
Boring. No, not boring. Short.
Like that.
In Hollywood they make epics.
"I am Tutankhamen.
My name is Tutankhamen.
"I am a descendant
of the Egyptian pharaohs
"and, before that,
of martians from outer space.
"I am going to unleash a plague on
all the world." Big epics like that.
In England we make films -
"My name is Jim.
"I stole some bread.
"I am a descendant
of my mother and father.
"That's it."
The End.
The English always play the bad guys,
we're the bad guys of Hollywood.
The French get sexy roles
in Hollywood films
because in the American Revolution
the French and the Americans
were allies
and the English were the bad guys.
Ever since we've all been bad guys.
"Hello, I'm a bad guy
and I have a gun."
"Oh, I'm dead."
And the French are, "I'm Pierre..."
No, not an American accent.
"I'm Pierre.
"I'm here to shag your family."
"Fantastic, sir, thank you very much.
"Thank you for General Lafayette.
"Off you go -
have sex with the whole family.
"There's my mother, my daughter,
take them all."
"I will."
It's always like that.
In Star Wars, we're the bad guys.
There's the Death Star - in the Death
Star all the bad guys are English
and the others are American.
"Darth Vader! Thank God you're here."
"Hot potato in your mouth?"
"Yes."
"Have you just been
to the Death Star canteen?"
Because there must be a canteen
in the Death Star.
You have to eat, so there must be
a restaurant on the Death Star.
And Darth Vader's there,
"I would like the penne arrabiata."
"You need a tray."
"Do you know who I am?"
"Do you know who I am?"
"This is not a game.
"This is not a game.
I am Darth Vader.
"I can kill you with a thought."
"Fine, but you'll need a tray."
"No, I do not need a tray,
I can kill you without a tray.
"I can do it
without a fork or plate or..."
"No, the plates are very hot.
You need a tray because the food..."
"Oh, for the food? Sorry.
"It's because I'm Darth Vader,
"I thought you were
challenging me to a fight."
"What was your name?"
"Darth Vader, I'm Darth Vader.
"I'm very well known here,
I run the Death Star."
"Darth Vader? No."
"Darth Vader. I'm Darth...
"Yes? Darth Vader? Very well known?
Everyone?"
"Darth Vader? Janine - Darth Vader.
"Do you know a Darth Vader?"
"Darth who?"
"Darth Vader."
"No. Steve Vader."
"Steve Vader?"
"No, it's Darth Vader."
"Steve Vader, he's a farmer
with a big tractor."
"Steve Vader?"
"No, I'm Darth...
"Oh, fuck it,
I'll go and get a tray."
"This is wet...
"This is wet.
"Wet, wet, wet, wet.
"Shit. A towel. Thanks.
"Sorry, I was here.
"Tell him, I was here,
I've already ordered."
"You'll have to queue."
"No, I'm Darth Vader.
"I'm... Do you know who I am?"
"He said that to me!
No, you have to queue."
"I am Darth Vader,
I can kill you with a thought."
"He said that too!
That's Steve Vader."
"No, no, I'm Darth Vader.
"Wait there.
I want the penne arrabiata now!"
"Steve Vader..."
"It's Darth fucking Vader."
"Do you want peas with that?"
"You don't eat peas
with penne arrabiata.
"It's Italian, you need pasta...
"penne, with a sauce and...
"OK, peas as well."
"Carrots?"
"Yes, carrots."
"Custard?"
"Fuck it.
"I'll have the potato salad."
That's the story of Darth Vader.
But finally
I want to talk about religion.
Religion...
We have the Church of England,
the Church of England in England.
Before that we had paganism
and after that Catholicism
and then the Church of England.
We had Catholicism until Henry VIII.
Henry VIII was a fat king,
and he said to the Pope,
"Mr. Pope, I want to marry my first
wife and then I will divorce her.
"Then I want to marry a second wife
"and then kill her, cut off her head.
"Hang on, it's quite complicated.
"I'll marry a third wife,
then put her in a bag,
"the fourth one in space,
the sixth in a box,
"the seventh on something like that,
I don't know the word in French.
"The seventh is made of jam,
"the eighth is...
"attached to a Slinky."
And the Pope said,
"What are you doing? I'm the Pope!
"You can't do that! I'm the Pope!
What are you, a Mormon?
"You can't do that."
So Henry VIII said,
"OK, I will create a new religion -
"the Church of England."
I think God is up there, in paradise,
in Vanessa Paradis,
he says to Jesus,
"Jesus, what's going on?"
"It's not my fault, God.
"I said to the humans,
'OK, you've got to do stuff here,
"I'm the son of God.' I said,
'Eat this bread, it is my body."
"It was the Last Supper,
eat this bread it is my body,
"drink this wine it is my blood."
"Eat this bread?"
"Yes, it's my body.
"The bread is your body?"
"Yes, it's an idea I had."
"Why bread? Why not cheese?
Cheese is better with..."
"Well, I didn't have any cheese."
"What about chocolate?
Chocolate is..."
"OK, I can change it to chocolate
if you want."
"And Coke, not wine,
or it'll turn Catholics alcoholic.
"All the Catholics
could wind up alcoholic.
"You need Coke and chocolate."
"OK, God.
"So I said that, and then they split
into different groups.
"There were Catholics, Protestants,
Methodists, Jesuits,
"Mormons, Amish.
"The Amish even have a song -
"In the Amish..."
"What? They're gay?"
"No!
"They're Amish, it's different.
"But they don't like buttons."
"Really?"
"Why? I said nothing about buttons."
"No, they don't like buttons.
The Amish, they're a bit different,
"they're German."
"They're Nazis?"
"No, not Nazis."
"They don't like buttons
and they make great wooden buildings
"and Harrison Ford is a good mate
of the Amish."
"And what does the Holy Ghost
think of all this?"
"Oh, the Holy Ghost is an idiot -
"he thinks he's a ghost.
"He's got a sheet over his head -
look."
"I'm the Holy Ghost."
"Holy Ghost, this is not
an episode of Scooby-Doo."
Scooby-Doo is a great character.
Scooby-Doo and Sammy.
In England it's Shaggy,
in France it's Sammy.
But... It is Sammy, right?
Good joke but it's true.
They're cowards,
Shaggy and Scooby are cowards.
It's strange, but they are cowards.
But they're characters that we love,
we love cowards.
It's hard to create a cowardly
character that we can love,
and Shaggy and Scooby were the first,
it's fantastic.
It's weird.
They like two things -
Sammy and Scooby-Doo
like being cowards
and they like sandwiches. Two things.
And I think everyone's like that.
We like to eat stuff, danger arrives
and we run!
Just like Sammy and Scooby-Doo.
"It's the Holy Ghost! We gotta run!"
It's always like that.
And human beings,
we human beings are very advanced,
very intelligent,
the most intelligent in the world.
But maybe whales,
whales are intelligent too.
They sing whale songs.
And no one understands.
But I think if you recorded
a whale song
and then sped it up
I reckon the whale would sing...
They're DJs!
Whales are the DJs of the sea.
OK, this record is for
all the little fish in the Azores.
And if human beings are
the most advanced
why do we have to have puberty?
Puberty is shit.
Gazelles don't have puberty.
On television, wildlife documentaries
don't have -
"OK, the gazelle there with acne,
spots on its face, with its mother."
"I want milk! Now!
"Fuck it. I'll go and have a fight
with a lion."
But finally, religion.
We had paganism in England,
then Catholicism,
and paganism had big parties
at Christmas and at Easter,
and the more things change
the more they stay the same.
Catholicism arrives
and they have festivals
at Christmas and Easter too.
God was born at Christmas
and he died over Easter.
It's amazingly synchronised -
hew religion, exactly the same.
The Last Supper.
The Last Supper is very tricky.
The Last Supper almost didn't happen
because Jesus is there at the door,
he knocks at the door,
someone opens.
"I'm Jesus, I'm here with
the twelve disciples.
"I'd like to have a bite to eat -
"the Last Supper."
"Oh, no, we're very...
"full at the moment.
"Have you reserved?"
"No, I'm Jesus, Jesus Christ,
it's the Last Supper.
"Did you make a reservation? Shit.
"Twelve disciples, a table for 13
"and we want to be sat
on just one side of the table."
"What? No.
"Very...
"We're very...
It's very busy tonight."
"OK, two people here, three people
on a different table
"and six people at the back."
"No, I'm Jesus Christ,
I'm the son of God.
"I'm here with my twelve disciples,
"Leonardo da Vinci is here
to paint the Last Supper.
"We've just arrived in a helicopter
that doesn't work.
"I'd like some chocolate
and some Coke.
"It's for a... It's a magic trick.
"And we want to have
the Last Supper!"
And finally they're there,
four hours later, Jesus is furious.
Judas and all the disciples,
there's Coke and chocolate,
they've got acne.
"OK, Leonardo, take the photo!
"Everyone smile! Smiles!
"Say Christian, say Christian."
And that's the true story
of Christianity.
And that is also the end of my show,
thank you for coming,
I am Eddie Izzard, good night!
I've done all my stand-up material,
so I'll start again at the beginning.
Thank you for coming, it's...
Sorry?
I don't understand.
What's "fireworks story"?
I don't know. "Feu d'artifice," fine!
Well, thanks for being here,
for coming,
and next time
I'll come back with a...
How do you Say...?
"Frigo" is easier.
Because it's a bit hot here.
We're hot in here,
in Pigalle it's nice and cold,
in the corridor there
it's almost fantastic.
OK. No more jokes.
Thank you.
See you soon, see you next time.
What?
No, I don't understand that at all.
You'll have to learn
another language, I think.
But there are a lot of comics
in England
and they can do jokes in English.
It's a fascinating language
but I find it very hard.
I'm sorry but...
I think this is France, right?
I thought we were in France,
maybe it's somewhere else.
No, it's France.
Thank you, good night.
Oh, that was good.
Hello, Paris, welcome to my show.
I'm Eddie Izzard,
I'm an English comedian, or...
Yes, I am English.
I was born in Yemen,
so I'm an Arab as well.
Maybe a "beur".
I'm also a transvestite,
that's a bit different.
Are there many transvestites
in France?
Yes, of course!
Not many.
There aren't many in England.
There are transvestites
but they don't admit to it.
It's a secret.
It's hard to tell everyone,
to be honest,
"I'm a transvestite," it's hard.
But there are transvestites here,
in Pigalle,
but they're a bit whorish.
I'm a different kind of transvestite,
I'm an executive transvestite.
It's a new concept, it's new for
the English, the Welsh, the Scottish,
the Americans.
I've done a big tour with this show,
everywhere everyone says,
"Transvestite? What's that?"
And transvestites, we're not
drag queens, we're a bit different.
Drag queens are
from the gay community,
and that's great.
Then there's a little stream...
and the transvestites live here,
next-door to the drag queens.
We're cousins.
There is a difference,
because drag queens are gay,
they like men,
and transvestites like women.
That's... It's true.
We like women.
We're like male tomboys.
Or perhaps like...
I'm a male lesbian.
It's a good word
to both explain and confuse.
So that's my sexuality.
My comedy... There's no connection
between my comedy and my sexuality,
I'm a transvestite
and I'm a comedian.
There's another little stream,
with comedy here.
It's like a man who's gay
and works in a bank.
There's no connection there.
And also the word "travesti"
is difficult,
because in England
the word is transvestite
and it's a word that has
a bad reputation everywhere.
It's hard. "I'm a transvestite,"
it's not...
You don't write "I'm a transvestite"
on your CV.
I play tennis, I've got A levels,
I'm a transvestite.
Maybe not.
But the word...
In England it's hard, I told
everyone, they all went "Eugh,"
but then, I have a personality,
"He's OK, he's a good bloke."
Eddie Izzard, transvestite, fine.
But I arrive in France
and [heard that... I learned that
the word "travesti" - transvestite -
means a travesty.
We have the word travesty as well,
in the English language.
The word travesty means
a catastrophe.
I arrived in France and discovered
that I was a catastrophe.
Hello, I'm a catastrophe.
"Hey, check out the catastrophe
over there."
"I reckon he's a catastrophe."
Hard or what?
But that's OK
because I enjoy having a quest.
I have a quest.
Is that right?
Sometimes I'll have to ask.
Because if I make a mistake
in French,
occasionally I don't realise.
I say the line
and there's a big laugh
and it's like,
"What? What did I say?"
Did I say I wanted
to shag my grandmother?
That's me.
For five years I've wanted
to do a show in French
because I'm a New European,
I'm a third millennium kinda guy.
I learned French...
Strange show, eh?
Always "Is that right? Yes, yes."
Everyone here is a teacher
and I'm a pupil.
Lots of teachers. Shit!
There are French people here
and I think English speakers too.
So if you're French -
I'm going to do a little test -
if you're French, go "whoo",
If your first language is English,
go "whuur".
Maybe 50-50, but the English were...
It's not the English embassy.
It's always the same.
In New York it's the same.
I said to them, "Who's American?"
"Who's from Britain?"
European?
I am European!
Yes. So I learned French at school,
and the first sentences I learned
are a bit tricky to bring up
in conversations.
They're sentences like
"the cat is near the chair."
Not a problem - there are cats in
France, there are chairs in France,
so every time I saw a cat
I pushed the cat
in front of the chair.
I've got a great idea.
Stay there.
The cat is near the chair.
No, the cat is near the chair.
Very near.
Very close.
Not far from.
Almost...
Almost at the chair.
Perhaps on... No, not on,
but near the chair.
Yeah, so?
So what?
Nothing.
OK, cat, off you go.
And another sentence was...
"the mouse is under the table."
That's harder.
I've never seen a mouse in France.
It's hard.
Another phrase is
"the monkey is on the tree."
On the branch, sorry.
The monkey is on the branch.
That's fucking hard.
Not many monkeys.
I've never seen a monkey.
No monkeys. No monkeys whatsoever.
On the Eurostar, no monkeys.
Gare du Nord, no monkeys.
At the bar, at the tobacconist,
no monkey.
Maybe in the zoos, but I haven't
visited the monkeys... the zoos,
We go to the hotel to reserve a room.
Do you have a room, sir?
Of course we do, this is a hotel!
Fine.
I'd like one room with a big bed
and a sea view.
And with a bathroom with a...
what's the word?
With a spider.
Spider?
The spider is more expensive.
OK, with a more expensive spider.
It's a joke, OK?
They think I've cocked it up, but no.
It's a mime joke.
You have to think very quickly
with me.
Room 42, sir.
OK, no problem.
But the cat is near the chair,
the mouse is under the table
and the monkey is on the branch.
With the spider?
There's a mouse here? A cat?
The cat's near the chair?
The monkey is on the branch?
Where is the monkey?
The monkey is on the branch.
Is the monkey in the room?
The monkey is not in the room.
Michele is in the room.
With Mr. Didier.
And Jacques Chirac.
It's a menage-a-trois.
- With the spider?
- No, that's a mnage-a-quatre.
It's very hard to use
those three sentences.
In the end I had to turn up in France
with a cat, a mouse
and a monkey in a bag.
I brought a table and chair
and we set ourselves up in a wood.
We stayed there
until someone turned up.
Hey, someone's coming.
Quick, positions!
Near the chair, near the chair.
You want some cheese?
On the branch. Stay there.
Come here!
Oh, shit.
I'm having a heart attack!
I've hurt my leg! I've lost my leg!
"What? What's going on?
"What's going on?"
- Oh, nothing.
- "Are you having a heart attack?"
No, I thought I was having one
but no, it's... I have a neck.
A cough! Not a neck.
What's "un cou"?
It's "un toux", yeah?
I just wanted to say, I'm English,
I'm here on holiday,
it's beautiful here, the colours,
the branches.
It's freezing cold, but it's OK -
the parties, the raves,
fucking fantastic.
"But you're a transvestite,
an English transvestite."
Yes, I am a transvestite,
but not a normal one.
I'm an executive transvestite.
An action transvestite,
because I go snowboarding.
"Snowboarding? Great."
Abso-fucking-lutely.
But the cat is near the chair,
the mouse is under the table
and the monkey...
Shit.
The monkey's gone.
Because the monkey knows
I'm not very good at translating
between French and English
so he does things
that are hard for me to translate.
Ah, the monkey's there now -
he's on a bicycle.
He's playing the banjo.
Now he's smoking a pipe.
Now he's giving someone
a blow job. No.
And now he's reading a newspaper.
And now he's doing the Baccalaurat.
We'll have to wait a while.
The Baccalaurat's very hard, yes.
Oh, he's finished, he averaged 90%.
Now the monkey's in the bus.
Look at that! He's in the...
He's driving the bus!
He's driving,
and Sandra Bullock is in the bus!
He has to drive the bus faster than
50 kilometres an hour.
Keanu Reeves is coming!
That's Keanu Reeves in the car.
He throws himself onto the bus,
and Dennis Hopper - so evil.
That's the film Speed.
I'd thought that the film in France
would have to have a new title,
like "La Vitesse!" perhaps.
But no, in France it's called Speed.
And now we have yet another war
between France and England,
the beef war goes on.
Lionel Jospin told the English
to bugger off,
the French... Europe -
the French are more European,
they were the first country,
with Germany,
who were there in the '40s,
in the late '40s
to implement the idea
of a New Europe.
But now, Europe, the government
of Europe, the European Commission
has said English beef is great,
it's fine now,
and France said "No.
"We don't like it,
we don't want to buy, sell the meat."
So it's war once again
between the two countries.
For the cows it's strange, because...
What did I say?
What did I say? What's funny?
What's funny?
There isn't normally
a big laugh there.
What did I fucking say?
It's a bonus.
The cows...
"Vache" is...?
That's funny?
Just the word "vache"?
Friday.
A strange audience here tonight.
They laugh at the word "les vaches".
No kidding.
But we have mad cow disease.
Mad cow, that means
Margaret Thatcher.
Big laugh there.
That half there.
Because our cows eat
other mashed up cows.
In France... "Ecraser"?
Too funny even for me.
Cows in France eat crap.
Sewage.
Like Mr. Magoo.
That's how I remember -
Mr. Magoo, "gouts".
"Oeuf" in English is egg,
and Mr. Magoo...
And between the two - "gouts".
It's a combination of Mr. Magoo
and an egg.
In my head.
It's a weird new European idea,
in England cows eat crushed up cows,
in France they eat crap,
in Germany cows eat
computers that don't work.
In Italy cows eat cigarettes.
In Spain they eat record books.
I don't know.
For the cows, it's shit -
"Hey, you fancy lunch?"
"No, not for me,
the food's normally shit."
"Well, on the lunch menu today
you've got...
"your brother, mashed. Not bad.
"He comes well done.
"We have crap.
"Oh, it's French crap,
it's fantastic.
"No vegetables with that.
"And we have apple tart."
"Apple tart? Maybe...
"No, I'll have the crap."
But this hatred, this constant hatred
between France and England -
why?
I've done this show, this tour...
I've toured in England, Scotland,
in Wales, in Ireland,
and I've asked everyone - because
there is a war on with the meat -
do you hate the French?
The Scottish, no,
ho problem with the French.
The Welsh, no,
a bit of a problem with the farmers,
but they hate...
What a hard verb!
They hate the English more,
so the Welsh hate the English.
The Irish,
ho problem with the French,
but the English hate the French,
they hate the Scottish, the Welsh,
the Irish, the Germans,
the Americans, the Japanese,
the Chinese,
the Spanish, the Italians,
Africans, every-fucking-body.
I want to ask the French,
just the French,
hot you, not you here in this room,
because you're a great audience,
an alternative audience,
an audience with a brain,
intelligent,
very pretty, things like that.
But generally speaking in France,
do you think
the French hate the English?
Not at all?
Do the French hate the Germans?
Was there a war?
Second World War?
Yes, there was a war.
Do the French hate Americans?
We all hate Americans!
That's the national anthem of Europe.
But hate is a drug for newspapers.
The English papers love hate
because they can start a war
if the French do something.
Because normally, I think the French
probably eat beef,
French beef, German beef, Croat beef.
They can't buy English beef,
and no one notices.
It's just beef.
Put the money down, no problem.
But the farmers, French farmers
are always in a hurry,
very angry all the time.
Whenever something happens
in England, on the telly
we see the farmers in their tractors.
All the way to Calais.
With the straw and a big fire.
The straw's on fire,
"We are farmers!"
It's like Asterix and Obelix.
"We are farmers!" Loads of farmers.
All the English tourists
in their cars,
"Lots of tractors. What's going on?"
"Dunno, I'm just here. It's a party."
But hate is a drug
for English papers.
If there's a problem between
France and England
they say, "The French
are being arseholes, as ever,
"look here, buy this newspaper
and you can read stuff."
And everyone says,
"Ooh, something in the paper today."
That's how it happens.
But I think hate is a drug.
Perhaps we hate
our neighbours the most.
Noisy neighbours who live next door,
they crap in our gardens.
Or perhaps we hate our families
the most.
Every Christmas
we stay with the family,
and after two hours you go,
"This family is shit!"
Like that. And that's why in England
every Christmas,
we have The Great Escape on TV.
I think so,
Because after a day or two
of Christmas,
"Hey, The Great Escape,
I'm gonna dig a tunnel!"
"The kids are
in the garden doing this -
"What's going on?"
"That's Steve McQueen
on a motorbike."
On a bicycle.
But I grew up in the '70s.
I also grew up in the '60s
but for our first ten years
we're all a bit...
In our adolescence
we're a bit more...
In our 20s...
In our 30s...
In our 40s...
In our 50s...
In our 60s, "No, thank you."
In our 70s, "What?"
In our 80s...
In our 90s...
And then we're all the Queen Mother.
She's 99 years old.
99 years old, the Queen Mother.
In England she's an ice cream,
we've got an ice cream called a 99.
It's got a cone, vanilla flavour,
with a stick of chocolate,
that's the 99,
and now the Queen Mother is
an ice cream.
All the children in England when
the Queen Mother's doing her walkies,
saying yoo-hoo,
all the children with their Flakes...
She's 99, she's 99!
It's a good joke for kids.
The family, the English monarchy,
they're called...
their surname is the Windsors.
But their real name is
the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas.
They're German
but they have an English accent,
it's strange.
They... The women in the monarchy
do nothing.
They do nothing.
They live and live and live.
Queen Victoria,
she died at an age of...
160 years old.
She's in a coffin now
but she's still alive, I reckon.
She's a vampire, like Thatcher.
The Queen Mother's 99,
the Queen's 98,
almost the same age.
Prince Charles -
Prince Philip's an idiot -
Prince Charles is a good bloke,
because he works for good causes,
he works very hard for good causes,
for disadvantaged young people
and that's good.
But the Queen, Liz,
she just lives.
I think Prince Charles,
he turns up at Buckingham Palace,
and says to his mother, "Hey, Mum, what
are you doing today?"
"I'm living!"
"And what did you do yesterday?"
"I lived!"
Perfect.
"And what will you do tomorrow?"
"I will live!"
Future.
"And two days ago,
what were you doing?"
"I was living!"
Imperfect.
That's all, that's all she does.
She's still alive.
The monarchy, they open things.
They open buildings - "Here I am,
I'm the monarch, I open this building,
"this shop, this supermarket..."
They're like locksmiths. The monarchy
and locksmiths are almost the same.
"The supermarket door is stuck,
"we'll have to call the King."
Well, the Queen now.
"Hey, Liz, come round with the keys."
"What's going on?
"OK, I've got the keys.
"Go fuck yourself.
"I am the Queen."
I grew up in the 70s,
and I think that in the '70s,
England lost its voice.
We lost our voice.
Before, we had an empire
but by the '70s we didn't have one.
We lost our voice,
we badly wanted to be European,
we were like,
with the head like this,
"What should I do now?
What should we do?"
And empires,
we had an empire in England
because we had lots of flags.
Lots of British flags,
we had lots of boats,
we travelled around the world
and the soldiers arrive with the
flags, they stick it into the beach
and say,
"Now India is part of England."
The Indians say, "What are you doing?
"We're Indian, there are
a hundred million people here,
"you can't put a flag here."
"Do you have a flag?"
"No, we don't, we don't need one."
"No flag, no country."
"That's the law."
But the end of the empires came
at the end of the Second World War.
For the French...
perhaps the Second World War
never happened.
"Second World War?
No, we're on holiday.
"No, I'm not here,
everyone's in Africa.
"Morocco, yeah."
So a tough war.
But Italy...
The Italians are most interesting
people from the Second World War
because they were
the first fascists, in '22,
Mussolini said everyone is fascist,
but the Italian personality doesn't
go very well with being a fascist.
Because we have lots of footage
of the Germans
marching in lines like that.
But I've never seen
Italians marching like that.
I don't think they'd want to do that.
Italians are better on scooters.
Like that,
with the glasses just there.
No helmet, young girl behind.
Always chatting up girls.
They chat up a girl here
with one there.
In '22 Mussolini said, "All Italians
are fascists now. Fascisti!"
No difference.
Mussolini invaded...
Mussolini invaded Abyssinia.
Why fucking Abyssinia?
Italy's there, Mediterranean there,
North Africa...
Abyssinia, a long way away.
All the Italians are saying,
"Why Abyssinia?"
"It's alphabetic."
But now we have Europe,
the new idea of Europe.
For the Scottish, I think they like
the idea of being European,
so do the Welsh and the Irish.
But the English...
It's like a film, a horror film.
Do you say "horreur"?
A horror film by Hammer Horror,
by "Horreur Marteau".
Because the English are always,
"European? Not ere, mister.
"No, there's no Europeans ere, no.
"I'm sorry.
"You're what?
"A European Commissioner?
"Come in, welcome.
"Sit down in the chair there.
"OK, stay there."
"No, no Europeans ere, mister.
"I think."
It's a... It's...
Forget that.
I tried to say the line in my head.
"Like that? No, like that."
Sometimes in English,
when I'm talking,
because I understand English...
I improvise
and I end up at a dead end.
"Oh, shit," and I have to reverse
very quickly.
And then I'm back. I can do that
very quickly in English.
But if in French I'm at a dead end
I have to do a three-point turn.
Sorry.
And that time I was at a dead end
like this -
"Oh, shit."
Nothing in my head.
Yeah!
But I've said to the English,
"We have to be European,
"we have to be
in the driving seat of Europe,
"if not, then in the passenger seat
"because we'll have
the windscreen with a view
"and we can play with the radio."
But at the moment, the English,
we're at the traffic lights of Europe
with a sponge, and there we are.
"Can we clean your windscreen?
"France? Germany? Spain?
"Shit!
"Got any Euros?"
What?
There are fireworks here.
I think at the millennium
you have to have fireworks.
You have... I think you have...
you have fireworks
on the 14th, no, July 15th?
July 14th.
July 14th. For us it's November 5th,
for the Americans it's the 4th...
July 4th?
Yeah, I know.
I've just said that!
It's my show, OK?
Calm down!
What's going on?
Have you got it written down?
Maybe I want to impro...
Vise,
What?
I don't know. That's improvisation.
You don't know,
it's not in your head,
improvisation is here,
it arrives and maybe sometimes
you get a good joke
but sometimes it's,
"What. Then. Hello. Cat. Fine."
And then...
I said to everyone,
"I am a sex beast."
Thank you.
I want to say, I'm not religious.
Oh, no - fireworks, yes.
Fireworks...
I don't think this joke
is working at all.
Sometimes, if you talk too much
in the middle of a joke
when you get to the joke
everyone says, "Fantastic.
"That's a shitty joke."
Forget the joke.
Later I'll say it.
The fireworks.
Maybe.
I'm not religious.
"Religieuse" is a nun, right?
Right.
I'm not religious.
That's it. Thank you.
No, I'm not religious but there are
a lot of gods in the world.
There's the Christian God.
The words "Chretien" and "crtin"
are very similar.
Why is that?
But for me, the concept of
the Christian God isn't the truth.
Because there's the whole universe,
it's enormous,
100 billion galaxies in the universe,
and I think the god Chaos
is the only god of the universe.
With the chaos theory
you have the god Chaos
who created the universe
with a firework.
"I am the god Chaos!"
No tactics, no big plan.
He's got a son, too, called Kevin.
"Kevin, I have created the universe!"
That's how it is for me.
But until...
You have to wait until
the Renaissance period,
the Renaissance is fantastic,
with Galileo.
And Leonardo da Vinci,
the most famous bloke
from the Renaissance.
He did paintings,
anatomical drawings,
he was a scientist,
he invented war machines
and he invented the helicopter too!
He invented a helicopter
which doesn't work.
And I have a connection
with Leonardo da Vinci
because I too have invented
a helicopter which doesn't work.
When I was eight.
It doesn't work at all.
Exactly the same as da Vinci.
Great minds think alike.
A helicopter
which doesn't fucking work.
And the Renaissance period
is fantastic for making films.
You've got Leonardo da Vinci,
Galileo, the Pope,
the Borgias, the Medicis,
lots of murders.
I love films, I've always wanted
to be in films.
In England we have a reputation
for making small films
with small stories.
With good actors, good stories
but the stories are a bit squeezed.
Not squeezed but...
Squeezed? I don't mean squeezed.
Thank you.
Boring. No, not boring. Short.
Like that.
In Hollywood they make epics.
"I am Tutankhamen.
My name is Tutankhamen.
"I am a descendant
of the Egyptian pharaohs
"and, before that,
of martians from outer space.
"I am going to unleash a plague on
all the world." Big epics like that.
In England we make films -
"My name is Jim.
"I stole some bread.
"I am a descendant
of my mother and father.
"That's it."
The End.
The English always play the bad guys,
we're the bad guys of Hollywood.
The French get sexy roles
in Hollywood films
because in the American Revolution
the French and the Americans
were allies
and the English were the bad guys.
Ever since we've all been bad guys.
"Hello, I'm a bad guy
and I have a gun."
"Oh, I'm dead."
And the French are, "I'm Pierre..."
No, not an American accent.
"I'm Pierre.
"I'm here to shag your family."
"Fantastic, sir, thank you very much.
"Thank you for General Lafayette.
"Off you go -
have sex with the whole family.
"There's my mother, my daughter,
take them all."
"I will."
It's always like that.
In Star Wars, we're the bad guys.
There's the Death Star - in the Death
Star all the bad guys are English
and the others are American.
"Darth Vader! Thank God you're here."
"Hot potato in your mouth?"
"Yes."
"Have you just been
to the Death Star canteen?"
Because there must be a canteen
in the Death Star.
You have to eat, so there must be
a restaurant on the Death Star.
And Darth Vader's there,
"I would like the penne arrabiata."
"You need a tray."
"Do you know who I am?"
"Do you know who I am?"
"This is not a game.
"This is not a game.
I am Darth Vader.
"I can kill you with a thought."
"Fine, but you'll need a tray."
"No, I do not need a tray,
I can kill you without a tray.
"I can do it
without a fork or plate or..."
"No, the plates are very hot.
You need a tray because the food..."
"Oh, for the food? Sorry.
"It's because I'm Darth Vader,
"I thought you were
challenging me to a fight."
"What was your name?"
"Darth Vader, I'm Darth Vader.
"I'm very well known here,
I run the Death Star."
"Darth Vader? No."
"Darth Vader. I'm Darth...
"Yes? Darth Vader? Very well known?
Everyone?"
"Darth Vader? Janine - Darth Vader.
"Do you know a Darth Vader?"
"Darth who?"
"Darth Vader."
"No. Steve Vader."
"Steve Vader?"
"No, it's Darth Vader."
"Steve Vader, he's a farmer
with a big tractor."
"Steve Vader?"
"No, I'm Darth...
"Oh, fuck it,
I'll go and get a tray."
"This is wet...
"This is wet.
"Wet, wet, wet, wet.
"Shit. A towel. Thanks.
"Sorry, I was here.
"Tell him, I was here,
I've already ordered."
"You'll have to queue."
"No, I'm Darth Vader.
"I'm... Do you know who I am?"
"He said that to me!
No, you have to queue."
"I am Darth Vader,
I can kill you with a thought."
"He said that too!
That's Steve Vader."
"No, no, I'm Darth Vader.
"Wait there.
I want the penne arrabiata now!"
"Steve Vader..."
"It's Darth fucking Vader."
"Do you want peas with that?"
"You don't eat peas
with penne arrabiata.
"It's Italian, you need pasta...
"penne, with a sauce and...
"OK, peas as well."
"Carrots?"
"Yes, carrots."
"Custard?"
"Fuck it.
"I'll have the potato salad."
That's the story of Darth Vader.
But finally
I want to talk about religion.
Religion...
We have the Church of England,
the Church of England in England.
Before that we had paganism
and after that Catholicism
and then the Church of England.
We had Catholicism until Henry VIII.
Henry VIII was a fat king,
and he said to the Pope,
"Mr. Pope, I want to marry my first
wife and then I will divorce her.
"Then I want to marry a second wife
"and then kill her, cut off her head.
"Hang on, it's quite complicated.
"I'll marry a third wife,
then put her in a bag,
"the fourth one in space,
the sixth in a box,
"the seventh on something like that,
I don't know the word in French.
"The seventh is made of jam,
"the eighth is...
"attached to a Slinky."
And the Pope said,
"What are you doing? I'm the Pope!
"You can't do that! I'm the Pope!
What are you, a Mormon?
"You can't do that."
So Henry VIII said,
"OK, I will create a new religion -
"the Church of England."
I think God is up there, in paradise,
in Vanessa Paradis,
he says to Jesus,
"Jesus, what's going on?"
"It's not my fault, God.
"I said to the humans,
'OK, you've got to do stuff here,
"I'm the son of God.' I said,
'Eat this bread, it is my body."
"It was the Last Supper,
eat this bread it is my body,
"drink this wine it is my blood."
"Eat this bread?"
"Yes, it's my body.
"The bread is your body?"
"Yes, it's an idea I had."
"Why bread? Why not cheese?
Cheese is better with..."
"Well, I didn't have any cheese."
"What about chocolate?
Chocolate is..."
"OK, I can change it to chocolate
if you want."
"And Coke, not wine,
or it'll turn Catholics alcoholic.
"All the Catholics
could wind up alcoholic.
"You need Coke and chocolate."
"OK, God.
"So I said that, and then they split
into different groups.
"There were Catholics, Protestants,
Methodists, Jesuits,
"Mormons, Amish.
"The Amish even have a song -
"In the Amish..."
"What? They're gay?"
"No!
"They're Amish, it's different.
"But they don't like buttons."
"Really?"
"Why? I said nothing about buttons."
"No, they don't like buttons.
The Amish, they're a bit different,
"they're German."
"They're Nazis?"
"No, not Nazis."
"They don't like buttons
and they make great wooden buildings
"and Harrison Ford is a good mate
of the Amish."
"And what does the Holy Ghost
think of all this?"
"Oh, the Holy Ghost is an idiot -
"he thinks he's a ghost.
"He's got a sheet over his head -
look."
"I'm the Holy Ghost."
"Holy Ghost, this is not
an episode of Scooby-Doo."
Scooby-Doo is a great character.
Scooby-Doo and Sammy.
In England it's Shaggy,
in France it's Sammy.
But... It is Sammy, right?
Good joke but it's true.
They're cowards,
Shaggy and Scooby are cowards.
It's strange, but they are cowards.
But they're characters that we love,
we love cowards.
It's hard to create a cowardly
character that we can love,
and Shaggy and Scooby were the first,
it's fantastic.
It's weird.
They like two things -
Sammy and Scooby-Doo
like being cowards
and they like sandwiches. Two things.
And I think everyone's like that.
We like to eat stuff, danger arrives
and we run!
Just like Sammy and Scooby-Doo.
"It's the Holy Ghost! We gotta run!"
It's always like that.
And human beings,
we human beings are very advanced,
very intelligent,
the most intelligent in the world.
But maybe whales,
whales are intelligent too.
They sing whale songs.
And no one understands.
But I think if you recorded
a whale song
and then sped it up
I reckon the whale would sing...
They're DJs!
Whales are the DJs of the sea.
OK, this record is for
all the little fish in the Azores.
And if human beings are
the most advanced
why do we have to have puberty?
Puberty is shit.
Gazelles don't have puberty.
On television, wildlife documentaries
don't have -
"OK, the gazelle there with acne,
spots on its face, with its mother."
"I want milk! Now!
"Fuck it. I'll go and have a fight
with a lion."
But finally, religion.
We had paganism in England,
then Catholicism,
and paganism had big parties
at Christmas and at Easter,
and the more things change
the more they stay the same.
Catholicism arrives
and they have festivals
at Christmas and Easter too.
God was born at Christmas
and he died over Easter.
It's amazingly synchronised -
hew religion, exactly the same.
The Last Supper.
The Last Supper is very tricky.
The Last Supper almost didn't happen
because Jesus is there at the door,
he knocks at the door,
someone opens.
"I'm Jesus, I'm here with
the twelve disciples.
"I'd like to have a bite to eat -
"the Last Supper."
"Oh, no, we're very...
"full at the moment.
"Have you reserved?"
"No, I'm Jesus, Jesus Christ,
it's the Last Supper.
"Did you make a reservation? Shit.
"Twelve disciples, a table for 13
"and we want to be sat
on just one side of the table."
"What? No.
"Very...
"We're very...
It's very busy tonight."
"OK, two people here, three people
on a different table
"and six people at the back."
"No, I'm Jesus Christ,
I'm the son of God.
"I'm here with my twelve disciples,
"Leonardo da Vinci is here
to paint the Last Supper.
"We've just arrived in a helicopter
that doesn't work.
"I'd like some chocolate
and some Coke.
"It's for a... It's a magic trick.
"And we want to have
the Last Supper!"
And finally they're there,
four hours later, Jesus is furious.
Judas and all the disciples,
there's Coke and chocolate,
they've got acne.
"OK, Leonardo, take the photo!
"Everyone smile! Smiles!
"Say Christian, say Christian."
And that's the true story
of Christianity.
And that is also the end of my show,
thank you for coming,
I am Eddie Izzard, good night!
I've done all my stand-up material,
so I'll start again at the beginning.
Thank you for coming, it's...
Sorry?
I don't understand.
What's "fireworks story"?
I don't know. "Feu d'artifice," fine!
Well, thanks for being here,
for coming,
and next time
I'll come back with a...
How do you Say...?
"Frigo" is easier.
Because it's a bit hot here.
We're hot in here,
in Pigalle it's nice and cold,
in the corridor there
it's almost fantastic.
OK. No more jokes.
Thank you.
See you soon, see you next time.
What?
No, I don't understand that at all.
You'll have to learn
another language, I think.
But there are a lot of comics
in England
and they can do jokes in English.
It's a fascinating language
but I find it very hard.
I'm sorry but...
I think this is France, right?
I thought we were in France,
maybe it's somewhere else.
No, it's France.
Thank you, good night.