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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Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks ATB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Comedy heavyweight, Eddie Izzard's material has taken on a life
of its own. Now going by Suzie Eddie, she doesn't
just tell jokes, she has rewritten history. The comedian, actor
and politician, yes, politician, has captivated audience with a career
that has consistently pushed things forward, and she is literally
(00:33):
a trailblazer, having also run more than one hundred marathons.
Eddie will grace New Zealand stages with two shows this
year that couldn't be more different, taking on all twenty
three roles in Shakespeare's Hamlet and remixing some of her
most iconic stand up moments from across the last thirty
five years of comedy shows. Suzie Eddie is with me
(00:53):
this morning, Calder.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Good morning, good morning. How are you.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I'm very well, thank you, delighted to be speaking with you,
Delighted that you're going to be coming to New Zealand.
Am I right in thinking you're coming twice? Or are
you just planning to sort of get a holiday and
stay here a year.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
No, I'm coming twice.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
So this is basically what it is Hamlet is what
I'm touring at the moment. But I had another day.
I have another day of which I haven't been leaning
on so much. But I haven't been since before COVID.
I haven't been to New Zealand with my comedy. So
just like Shakespeare went from his comedies to his dramas
and tragedies, so am I. So you can buy two
days for me if you are crazy and you want
(01:30):
to see the difference. I started off with my drama game.
But when I was seven, I wanted to be an act.
I didn't want to be a I didn't know that
you could specialize in comedy. So, just like Shakespeare did,
start with his comedies and then he progressed and I'm
one of my first My first ever Shakespeare was comedy
of Vera's.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
And now I'm doing a Hamlet.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
So you can come to see me in uh well,
basically in Wellington and Oakland, doing both in christ Yes,
I'm so sorry you're going to have to take a
little flight over to the Northland, but I will be
back and I'm going to.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Tour Hamlet forever.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
So yeah, it starts off with remix and then I
come back with Hamlets au fantastic.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Let's put her to one side for a moment to
ask about it in a couple of minutes. But since
you're beginning with remix, it's let's start there. How do
you go back and choose the characters you want to
play and the skits you want to remix? For a
career as distinguished as yours?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Distinguished? Thank you for the distinguished. I feel like I
should speak like this now.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
It's well, you are a Shakespearean actor, you know.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I mean.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
I could be going. I am just here waiting until
I sound like this. No one of the one of
the great things. Well, we're going to watch for later.
But things about the Hamlet is that we do not
do arcting as it's called.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Oh but the wind.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Of the now is the winner of our discontent, very glorious. Yeah,
and we.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Keep it very vestibal.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
But anyway, on the comedy, the beautiful thing is I
can change at night tonight and so and then people
say why are you doing this?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Bit? I go, oh, yeah, why am I doing this?
But I can put that bit.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
And I've just come up with a new idea that
I wanted to talk about about body. Prince Charlie who
was the Jacobite leader in the in the Highlands of Scotland,
which I'm sure New Zealand people even though it's not
their direct history in the country. New Zealanders, none of
them have links back to Britain, and so you can
talk about that because they didn't. Yeah, I realized that
(03:22):
they didn't need a bonnie Prince Charlie. But he is
really bunny. You see there's a painting on when he's
twenty and he turns out on he's twenty five.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
In Scotland. You know about this, the Jacobite rebellion.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Just imagine Highlanders try to They tried to take over
the whole of the whole of England and they got
a long way, they got halfway down England and they
turned udir way back. But it was certainly a Catholic
Protestant argument. It's one of those old chestnuts.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
But he really looks very pretty.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
That's someone who's a trans woman and you know, has
a boyish look about me. I can go, well, that's
pretty good look at twenty but I don't think it's
what you need when you're landing and up in the
Highlands of Scotland with only seven people, and trying to
whip all the tri the tribes, the the well, they're.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Not called tribes, they're called the clans.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Whipping the clans up into a furor to say, come
on and take on the Sassanax the English and and
will go south. And what you want is psychopathic Prince Charlie.
Don't You don't want Bonnie Prince Charlie, you want cycle.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
And so I just come up with ideas like they
So all these.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Ideas going back were like that, where you can play
on surely psychopathic Prince Charlie.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Couldn't we do that?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
No?
Speaker 3 (04:27):
I perfect because he was Italian, he grew up in Italy.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
He was he was the grandson of the of the
guy who had been king and had run away.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
And so he would have been Italian.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Then Billy Conny's done a whole piece on How's how
he was very kind of pretty and but this is
all I'm leading into the psychopathic edge on it. And
so anyway, so I can do so that's new, and
I can drop that in if I want, because it's remixed.
It's remixing anything in my brain and older stuff. And
I literally can go, oh, let's do this, but no
that stuff. Let's do this tonight or ad lib and
(04:57):
and and it is remix like the Death Star Canteen
is a piece I know about Darth Vader, the same
we've destroyed all around.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Oh love, Yeah, that's what we do. That's start. Let's
go down and celebrate in the canteen.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
And and the woman behind the couster going, you need
a trade or I do not need a t and
this whole status argument that was going on, but I
changed it. It was obviously recorded on one day, goes
out and a bit like jazz musicians or I'm going
to put Jimmy Page in here. I think night to
night Jimmy was doing just different solos. All the great
(05:33):
guitarists were doing that, just coming up with different things.
And the day that was recorded, that was the Desk
Star Canteen version that went out. But I've just moved
it about now and moved some of the pieces so
the people listening go.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
I know this, Oh I don't know this.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
I do know this, I don't know this, and and
I just take it off in different directions.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
So that's what it is. It is a remix with
additional stuff.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
It's the director's cut, the director, act, performers visit.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
And so it lives.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
That's the thing is it lives as opposed to it's
old and we put it out and it's it's the
old prayer from before. It's a it's got essences of that,
but also new stuff as well.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Every every night is essentially unique, or has the potitial
to be unique, and that you might reorder things. Yeah, yeah,
from the night before.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Yeah, probably won't be drastically, probably only about five percent different,
but you know, I would drop things out put that in, Yes,
and it'll had this difference and feels it's like a conversation.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
That's the thing about my standup.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
It has this conversational feel as opposed to a ridgide.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
This is the thing to night and doesn't move.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
And some people live for that, but I live for
the and I think the audiences respond to what I'm
doing in in comedy in this way, drama different. You
have to set to the to the text of Shakespeare's text,
but emotionally I can move it every night.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
That's the thing I can do.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
Right, we'll talk about Yeah, so did this involved planning
for for the remix to involve kind of a studious
period of setting down and going back and thinking about.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
The characters you played over the years and say, well,
let's age, Well that hasn't necessarily hears something. He's a
new take on that was it was it kind of
that deliberate.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
What do you think?
Speaker 4 (07:14):
No, I was lazy, asked, well, you see, it's the
jazz thing. The jazz musicians sit down and which shall
I use today?
Speaker 3 (07:23):
No style?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Almost, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
It's it's it's more it's jazz. It's let's go with jazz.
I go with the jazz players.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Because I played Lenny Bruce on stage, and he first
took off by by by performing in strip clubs and
trying to make the band love behind him. Because he
had a whole career that's very mainstream. If you look
up very early some footage on YouTube of early Lenny Bruce,
a very political and edgy American comic in the late
fifties going into the sixties, and he was it was
(07:54):
wildly mainstream. So Benny Hill like and then and then
it moves over and he says, I'm not gonna playny
of stuff any I'm going to go to play strip clubs.
And then he's trying to make the band love because
obviously the strippers when it's the people watching the.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Strippers were into it. And then the.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Word got out to the college kids and they said,
come players, because this sounds great. And then he started
getting more political, so that said, I'm playing for the
for the people who understand when hey, we're flying, we're moving,
it's alive.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
That's what I'm playing for.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Have you been surprised by some of the components that
have aged especially well or haven't necessarily well?
Speaker 3 (08:29):
You see they all I designed them to age very well.
Ah now if you yeah, yes, yes, that's what I'm
talking about. Planning. Yeah, I do plan, But then I'm very.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Lazy, so I'm I'm a highly driven, lazy person. So
I worked out Monty Python. It's, you know, the silliness
of it, some of the sketches. If you look back
at the TV show, which we can all download, you
can say, well, that doesn't really work. It's not so funny,
but nearly all of it works, and it's stupidity. The
completely Twitter the Year Award. You can still do it now.
(09:00):
It's just it's fine. But what they decided to do
is nothing topical. And if you do topical saying, well
is this you know obviously that's so dated. Now you
do that, you know, so you I realized you go
into politics, and I am planning to go into politics.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Brother, I'll do I'll do it differently there, but I'll
just keep this all alive. Historical politics you could do.
You can historical politics, you know, talking about kings. You
know Henry eights, Why did he do this?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Why did he fight, you know, in the against the pope.
He was with the pope, then it was against the pope.
Was he wanted to have a male heir, and he
did have one, but that kid died after five years.
You know, it all went wrong. Henry eight decided to
eat everything that was in front of him. I'm behind him,
so that all went on. I can talk about that
because it doesn't move you see. Sure if you come
up with comedy and then it moves the whole zeitguy's
(09:45):
the reason now.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
You brought it up.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
That's a goddamn waste of time, as they say in China,
And so I thought, don't do that and just do
stuff about human sacrifice?
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Why is it there? Why did they decide to kill people?
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Because gods must have created those people why would you
kill the people that the gods have created? You know,
to say, surely, even if it's a lamb or a
thing and go through whatever, the gods must have created them.
So there must have been someone going this is insanity.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
We won't get.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Better crops by doing this, We'll get worse crops. That's
what I would have argued in the court of the
court of those ancient tribal nutbags. But they did it
all around the world, but humans did it, Viking, the Aztecs.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Crazy.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
So for members of our audience who don't know how
the tragedy of Hamlet works, can you just explain to
us the broad concept.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
How it works, how I'm performing it, or how the
story works. Oh well, for me, it's just it's a
solo performance. There's a lot of people around. If you
know your there's a lot of people now doing solo
performances all around the world, and they're doing very well
by it. So it's you bring your imagination to if
you think about it, you go to a watch your film,
you bring very little. You don't need much imagination. It's
(10:56):
right there from viscerally happening, bombed through the screen to
your eyeballs and your ears and all your all your senses.
But if you think about theater, you have to bring
about thirty percent imagination because you are in a building
in a theater and there's people moving around.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
They're really there.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
And it's just a little bit more with my because
it's a solo performance.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
But it does mean that you.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Get to concentrate, you get to see very clearly the text,
the beauty of the poetry, the characters into play, and
we've worked very hard on moving the juxtaposition and me
moving between different characters. That's a simple change. These are
not caricatures. These are characters. But you know, we sold
seventy five thousand tickets. Now we're coming out to two
(11:39):
hundred and fiftieth performance. We just got the La Times
saying awesome to witness. You know, it's the reviews are
coming like crazy, and so not everyone gets this. Some
people say, oh, you can't do it like this, You're
not allowed to don't change lanes. That's the thing that
comes up. You know, you weren't doing comedy. Now you're
doing Shakespeare.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
How dare you?
Speaker 4 (11:56):
But no, it's the vast majority of people saying this
is this is visceral and I'm sure of one thing
that when Shakespeare wrote His Place, he wanted people to
be to be moved by it, to love, to cry,
to have horror, flings of horror, all those feelings viscerally,
have those things. He did not want the audience to go, oh,
I don't know what he's talking about. Oh, can we
look at that please?
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Does anyone have an ard? And all this different the
works of Shakespeare? Can we google it?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Oh? It doesn't exist another four hundred years. All right,
I'm sure.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
I feel absolutely sure in my bones that there's no
way that any playwright worth this song, any writer wants
people to go, oh.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Not sure what that's all about.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
I better go and get a dictionary and look everything up,
because and that's.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
What we do.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
The beauty of the poetry is still there. We've micro
adjusted certain things. There are three different versions of Hamlet,
first quarter and second quarter and the first folio, and
you have to make your adaptation. I think the four
and a half hour version was was the director's cut that.
I think that was Shakespeare saying, actually, this is what
I'm going to add stuff to this and put that in.
But he never signed off on any version. He never
said this is the defensive version, which is very odd
(12:56):
of him. I don't know why with all that You've
got to have a big, strong ego to write all
that stuff and then to just say.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
I'll put it out if you want. I don't think
it's just so odd.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Whereas Benja and his compatriot good made of his also
didn't go to university like Shakespeare must have had the
similar kind of fighting spirit to get through amongst all
these university boys back in the sixteen hundreds, and he
published all his stuff. So why did Shakespeare not? It
doesn't really make sense. So you just take the play.
It's a legend. There's the Hamlet story, which is that
he wrote it about his son, but his son died.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
We think of the play and we're not sure.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
And there's a wonderful in the film is a wonderful
imagination of what could have happened. But really this story
is based on Amleth, who is Saxo Grammaticus was a
Danish historian wrote about this guy. It's a legendary story,
not a myth, so it's based on truth. And he
did go to England. He did marry there, which doesn't
happen to play he did fight a battle there. It
doesn't happen to play. His uncle did kill his father,
(13:49):
which is true to the play. And so Shakespeare would grab.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Stories that already exist.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Only three of his plays were original, So this is
a version of a story that already exists, and he
reinterpreted it and put it on. So what you come
is you get this play that is just in such
a beautiful position.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
And if you buy both.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Tickets, you'll see surreal comedy a bit like the early
works of Shakespeare, and then you'll come and see drama
and tragedy like the later works of Shakespeare. That's my
challenge to you, good people of New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
And yeah, I mean it sounds, it sounds amazing, and
we're just so delighted that you aren't Steve Fastley staying
in a lane. I feel like this is this is
the thing that has kind of defined much of your life,
is that you have refused any kind of pigeonholing in
that scenes.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
And yes, well you know as soon as you come
out as trans you know, in nineteen eighty five, so
that's over forty years, forty years anniversary. This Janet, the Janel,
it's just passed and you've you you're up there saying well, okay,
society says things are like this, or a business industry
says it's like this, and maybe it's not.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Maybe you need to just move things.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
And then once you get into you know, I was,
I was a sketch performer like Piked and they are
like comedy gods and they're a street performer. Because I
couldn't work out how to start my career and then
four years of that that that taught me how to
do what we are doing this in Hamlet, because this
is a performance two people admitting that they're there, admitting
them there. I'm talking to them with all my thirty
(15:15):
five years of stand up experience, as opposed to add
a lot of I think actors probably more used to
performing at people where they perform out.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
But this is too.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
I know you're there, you know I'm here, and I'm
portraying these characters and what is this that I see
them as a Greek chorus of my mind, of Hamlet's mind,
and so it's just a beautiful thing to do and
to be out there doing it, and it is a
dramatic version of Hamlet, and not a comedian, but some
people think it might be a comedy.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
It is not.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
There's some comedy characters in a certain comic elements. The
Grave Diggercine is very comic, but it's the rest of
it is the story of a family tearing itself apart,
in a country tearing itself apart, in this world where
some of us are tearing ourselves apart, but the rest
of us are fighting on and being and being positive
and doing positive things. So as a transfer woman touring
(16:04):
the world I think it's a good time to the
world and say that's for John kids the rest of us.
Let's keep forging on, keep positive. This time will past.
We will prevail.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
On that hopeful message. Honestly, thank you so much. We
could just sit here and listen to you all day
and yeah, we had delight that you're bringing both shows
to New Zealand. All the very best and we'll see
you soon.
Speaker 5 (16:25):
Thank you very much, Chez that is Susie Eddie is Ard.
Tickets for Eddie's Remix tour and the one person performance
of Hamlet are now available at eddieizard dot com. We'll
have all the details up on the news talks He'd
be website as well for.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
More from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live to
news talks he'd be from nine am Saturday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks ATB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Comedy heavyweight, Eddie Izzard's material has taken on a life
of its own. Now going by Suzie Eddie, she doesn't
just tell jokes, she has rewritten history. The comedian, actor
and politician, yes, politician, has captivated audience with a career
that has consistently pushed things forward, and she is literally
(00:33):
a trailblazer, having also run more than one hundred marathons.
Eddie will grace New Zealand stages with two shows this
year that couldn't be more different, taking on all twenty
three roles in Shakespeare's Hamlet and remixing some of her
most iconic stand up moments from across the last thirty
five years of comedy shows. Suzie Eddie is with me
(00:53):
this morning, Calder.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Good morning, good morning. How are you.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I'm very well, thank you, delighted to be speaking with you,
Delighted that you're going to be coming to New Zealand.
Am I right in thinking you're coming twice? Or are
you just planning to sort of get a holiday and
stay here a year.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
No, I'm coming twice.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
So this is basically what it is Hamlet is what
I'm touring at the moment. But I had another day.
I have another day of which I haven't been leaning
on so much. But I haven't been since before COVID.
I haven't been to New Zealand with my comedy. So
just like Shakespeare went from his comedies to his dramas
and tragedies, so am I. So you can buy two
days for me if you are crazy and you want
(01:30):
to see the difference. I started off with my drama game.
But when I was seven, I wanted to be an act.
I didn't want to be a I didn't know that
you could specialize in comedy. So, just like Shakespeare did,
start with his comedies and then he progressed and I'm
one of my first My first ever Shakespeare was comedy
of Vera's.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
And now I'm doing a Hamlet.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
So you can come to see me in uh well,
basically in Wellington and Oakland, doing both in christ Yes,
I'm so sorry you're going to have to take a
little flight over to the Northland, but I will be
back and I'm going to.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Tour Hamlet forever.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
So yeah, it starts off with remix and then I
come back with Hamlets au fantastic.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Let's put her to one side for a moment to
ask about it in a couple of minutes. But since
you're beginning with remix, it's let's start there. How do
you go back and choose the characters you want to
play and the skits you want to remix? For a
career as distinguished as yours?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Distinguished? Thank you for the distinguished. I feel like I
should speak like this now.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
It's well, you are a Shakespearean actor, you know.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I mean.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
I could be going. I am just here waiting until
I sound like this. No one of the one of
the great things. Well, we're going to watch for later.
But things about the Hamlet is that we do not
do arcting as it's called.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Oh but the wind.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Of the now is the winner of our discontent, very glorious. Yeah,
and we.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Keep it very vestibal.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
But anyway, on the comedy, the beautiful thing is I
can change at night tonight and so and then people
say why are you doing this?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Bit? I go, oh, yeah, why am I doing this?
But I can put that bit.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
And I've just come up with a new idea that
I wanted to talk about about body. Prince Charlie who
was the Jacobite leader in the in the Highlands of Scotland,
which I'm sure New Zealand people even though it's not
their direct history in the country. New Zealanders, none of
them have links back to Britain, and so you can
talk about that because they didn't. Yeah, I realized that
(03:22):
they didn't need a bonnie Prince Charlie. But he is
really bunny. You see there's a painting on when he's
twenty and he turns out on he's twenty five.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
In Scotland. You know about this, the Jacobite rebellion.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Just imagine Highlanders try to They tried to take over
the whole of the whole of England and they got
a long way, they got halfway down England and they
turned udir way back. But it was certainly a Catholic
Protestant argument. It's one of those old chestnuts.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
But he really looks very pretty.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
That's someone who's a trans woman and you know, has
a boyish look about me. I can go, well, that's
pretty good look at twenty but I don't think it's
what you need when you're landing and up in the
Highlands of Scotland with only seven people, and trying to
whip all the tri the tribes, the the well, they're.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Not called tribes, they're called the clans.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Whipping the clans up into a furor to say, come
on and take on the Sassanax the English and and
will go south. And what you want is psychopathic Prince Charlie.
Don't You don't want Bonnie Prince Charlie, you want cycle.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
And so I just come up with ideas like they
So all these.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Ideas going back were like that, where you can play
on surely psychopathic Prince Charlie.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Couldn't we do that?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
No?
Speaker 3 (04:27):
I perfect because he was Italian, he grew up in Italy.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
He was he was the grandson of the of the
guy who had been king and had run away.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
And so he would have been Italian.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Then Billy Conny's done a whole piece on How's how
he was very kind of pretty and but this is
all I'm leading into the psychopathic edge on it. And
so anyway, so I can do so that's new, and
I can drop that in if I want, because it's remixed.
It's remixing anything in my brain and older stuff. And
I literally can go, oh, let's do this, but no
that stuff. Let's do this tonight or ad lib and
(04:57):
and and it is remix like the Death Star Canteen
is a piece I know about Darth Vader, the same
we've destroyed all around.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Oh love, Yeah, that's what we do. That's start. Let's
go down and celebrate in the canteen.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
And and the woman behind the couster going, you need
a trade or I do not need a t and
this whole status argument that was going on, but I
changed it. It was obviously recorded on one day, goes
out and a bit like jazz musicians or I'm going
to put Jimmy Page in here. I think night to
night Jimmy was doing just different solos. All the great
(05:33):
guitarists were doing that, just coming up with different things.
And the day that was recorded, that was the Desk
Star Canteen version that went out. But I've just moved
it about now and moved some of the pieces so
the people listening go.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
I know this, Oh I don't know this.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
I do know this, I don't know this, and and
I just take it off in different directions.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
So that's what it is. It is a remix with
additional stuff.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
It's the director's cut, the director, act, performers visit.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
And so it lives.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
That's the thing is it lives as opposed to it's
old and we put it out and it's it's the
old prayer from before. It's a it's got essences of that,
but also new stuff as well.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Every every night is essentially unique, or has the potitial
to be unique, and that you might reorder things. Yeah, yeah,
from the night before.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Yeah, probably won't be drastically, probably only about five percent different,
but you know, I would drop things out put that in, Yes,
and it'll had this difference and feels it's like a conversation.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
That's the thing about my standup.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
It has this conversational feel as opposed to a ridgide.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
This is the thing to night and doesn't move.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
And some people live for that, but I live for
the and I think the audiences respond to what I'm
doing in in comedy in this way, drama different. You
have to set to the to the text of Shakespeare's text,
but emotionally I can move it every night.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
That's the thing I can do.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
Right, we'll talk about Yeah, so did this involved planning
for for the remix to involve kind of a studious
period of setting down and going back and thinking about.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
The characters you played over the years and say, well,
let's age, Well that hasn't necessarily hears something. He's a
new take on that was it was it kind of
that deliberate.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
What do you think?
Speaker 4 (07:14):
No, I was lazy, asked, well, you see, it's the
jazz thing. The jazz musicians sit down and which shall
I use today?
Speaker 3 (07:23):
No style?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Almost, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
It's it's it's more it's jazz. It's let's go with jazz.
I go with the jazz players.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Because I played Lenny Bruce on stage, and he first
took off by by by performing in strip clubs and
trying to make the band love behind him. Because he
had a whole career that's very mainstream. If you look
up very early some footage on YouTube of early Lenny Bruce,
a very political and edgy American comic in the late
fifties going into the sixties, and he was it was
(07:54):
wildly mainstream. So Benny Hill like and then and then
it moves over and he says, I'm not gonna playny
of stuff any I'm going to go to play strip clubs.
And then he's trying to make the band love because
obviously the strippers when it's the people watching the.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Strippers were into it. And then the.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Word got out to the college kids and they said,
come players, because this sounds great. And then he started
getting more political, so that said, I'm playing for the
for the people who understand when hey, we're flying, we're moving,
it's alive.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
That's what I'm playing for.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Have you been surprised by some of the components that
have aged especially well or haven't necessarily well?
Speaker 3 (08:29):
You see they all I designed them to age very well.
Ah now if you yeah, yes, yes, that's what I'm
talking about. Planning. Yeah, I do plan, But then I'm very.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Lazy, so I'm I'm a highly driven, lazy person. So
I worked out Monty Python. It's, you know, the silliness
of it, some of the sketches. If you look back
at the TV show, which we can all download, you
can say, well, that doesn't really work. It's not so funny,
but nearly all of it works, and it's stupidity. The
completely Twitter the Year Award. You can still do it now.
(09:00):
It's just it's fine. But what they decided to do
is nothing topical. And if you do topical saying, well
is this you know obviously that's so dated. Now you
do that, you know, so you I realized you go
into politics, and I am planning to go into politics.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Brother, I'll do I'll do it differently there, but I'll
just keep this all alive. Historical politics you could do.
You can historical politics, you know, talking about kings. You
know Henry eights, Why did he do this?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Why did he fight, you know, in the against the pope.
He was with the pope, then it was against the pope.
Was he wanted to have a male heir, and he
did have one, but that kid died after five years.
You know, it all went wrong. Henry eight decided to
eat everything that was in front of him. I'm behind him,
so that all went on. I can talk about that
because it doesn't move you see. Sure if you come
up with comedy and then it moves the whole zeitguy's
(09:45):
the reason now.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
You brought it up.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
That's a goddamn waste of time, as they say in China,
And so I thought, don't do that and just do
stuff about human sacrifice?
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Why is it there? Why did they decide to kill people?
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Because gods must have created those people why would you
kill the people that the gods have created? You know,
to say, surely, even if it's a lamb or a
thing and go through whatever, the gods must have created them.
So there must have been someone going this is insanity.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
We won't get.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Better crops by doing this, We'll get worse crops. That's
what I would have argued in the court of the
court of those ancient tribal nutbags. But they did it
all around the world, but humans did it, Viking, the Aztecs.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Crazy.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
So for members of our audience who don't know how
the tragedy of Hamlet works, can you just explain to
us the broad concept.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
How it works, how I'm performing it, or how the
story works. Oh well, for me, it's just it's a
solo performance. There's a lot of people around. If you
know your there's a lot of people now doing solo
performances all around the world, and they're doing very well
by it. So it's you bring your imagination to if
you think about it, you go to a watch your film,
you bring very little. You don't need much imagination. It's
(10:56):
right there from viscerally happening, bombed through the screen to
your eyeballs and your ears and all your all your senses.
But if you think about theater, you have to bring
about thirty percent imagination because you are in a building
in a theater and there's people moving around.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
They're really there.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
And it's just a little bit more with my because
it's a solo performance.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
But it does mean that you.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Get to concentrate, you get to see very clearly the text,
the beauty of the poetry, the characters into play, and
we've worked very hard on moving the juxtaposition and me
moving between different characters. That's a simple change. These are
not caricatures. These are characters. But you know, we sold
seventy five thousand tickets. Now we're coming out to two
(11:39):
hundred and fiftieth performance. We just got the La Times
saying awesome to witness. You know, it's the reviews are
coming like crazy, and so not everyone gets this. Some
people say, oh, you can't do it like this, You're
not allowed to don't change lanes. That's the thing that
comes up. You know, you weren't doing comedy. Now you're
doing Shakespeare.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
How dare you?
Speaker 4 (11:56):
But no, it's the vast majority of people saying this
is this is visceral and I'm sure of one thing
that when Shakespeare wrote His Place, he wanted people to
be to be moved by it, to love, to cry,
to have horror, flings of horror, all those feelings viscerally,
have those things. He did not want the audience to go, oh,
I don't know what he's talking about. Oh, can we
look at that please?
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Does anyone have an ard? And all this different the
works of Shakespeare? Can we google it?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Oh? It doesn't exist another four hundred years. All right,
I'm sure.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
I feel absolutely sure in my bones that there's no
way that any playwright worth this song, any writer wants
people to go, oh.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Not sure what that's all about.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
I better go and get a dictionary and look everything up,
because and that's.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
What we do.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
The beauty of the poetry is still there. We've micro
adjusted certain things. There are three different versions of Hamlet,
first quarter and second quarter and the first folio, and
you have to make your adaptation. I think the four
and a half hour version was was the director's cut that.
I think that was Shakespeare saying, actually, this is what
I'm going to add stuff to this and put that in.
But he never signed off on any version. He never
said this is the defensive version, which is very odd
(12:56):
of him. I don't know why with all that You've
got to have a big, strong ego to write all
that stuff and then to just say.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
I'll put it out if you want. I don't think
it's just so odd.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Whereas Benja and his compatriot good made of his also
didn't go to university like Shakespeare must have had the
similar kind of fighting spirit to get through amongst all
these university boys back in the sixteen hundreds, and he
published all his stuff. So why did Shakespeare not? It
doesn't really make sense. So you just take the play.
It's a legend. There's the Hamlet story, which is that
he wrote it about his son, but his son died.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
We think of the play and we're not sure.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
And there's a wonderful in the film is a wonderful
imagination of what could have happened. But really this story
is based on Amleth, who is Saxo Grammaticus was a
Danish historian wrote about this guy. It's a legendary story,
not a myth, so it's based on truth. And he
did go to England. He did marry there, which doesn't
happen to play he did fight a battle there. It
doesn't happen to play. His uncle did kill his father,
(13:49):
which is true to the play. And so Shakespeare would grab.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Stories that already exist.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Only three of his plays were original, So this is
a version of a story that already exists, and he
reinterpreted it and put it on. So what you come
is you get this play that is just in such
a beautiful position.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
And if you buy both.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Tickets, you'll see surreal comedy a bit like the early
works of Shakespeare, and then you'll come and see drama
and tragedy like the later works of Shakespeare. That's my
challenge to you, good people of New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
And yeah, I mean it sounds, it sounds amazing, and
we're just so delighted that you aren't Steve Fastley staying
in a lane. I feel like this is this is
the thing that has kind of defined much of your life,
is that you have refused any kind of pigeonholing in
that scenes.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
And yes, well you know as soon as you come
out as trans you know, in nineteen eighty five, so
that's over forty years, forty years anniversary. This Janet, the Janel,
it's just passed and you've you you're up there saying well, okay,
society says things are like this, or a business industry
says it's like this, and maybe it's not.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Maybe you need to just move things.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
And then once you get into you know, I was,
I was a sketch performer like Piked and they are
like comedy gods and they're a street performer. Because I
couldn't work out how to start my career and then
four years of that that that taught me how to
do what we are doing this in Hamlet, because this
is a performance two people admitting that they're there, admitting
them there. I'm talking to them with all my thirty
(15:15):
five years of stand up experience, as opposed to add
a lot of I think actors probably more used to
performing at people where they perform out.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
But this is too.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
I know you're there, you know I'm here, and I'm
portraying these characters and what is this that I see
them as a Greek chorus of my mind, of Hamlet's mind,
and so it's just a beautiful thing to do and
to be out there doing it, and it is a
dramatic version of Hamlet, and not a comedian, but some
people think it might be a comedy.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
It is not.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
There's some comedy characters in a certain comic elements. The
Grave Diggercine is very comic, but it's the rest of
it is the story of a family tearing itself apart,
in a country tearing itself apart, in this world where
some of us are tearing ourselves apart, but the rest
of us are fighting on and being and being positive
and doing positive things. So as a transfer woman touring
(16:04):
the world I think it's a good time to the
world and say that's for John kids the rest of us.
Let's keep forging on, keep positive. This time will past.
We will prevail.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
On that hopeful message. Honestly, thank you so much. We
could just sit here and listen to you all day
and yeah, we had delight that you're bringing both shows
to New Zealand. All the very best and we'll see
you soon.
Speaker 5 (16:25):
Thank you very much, Chez that is Susie Eddie is Ard.
Tickets for Eddie's Remix tour and the one person performance
of Hamlet are now available at eddieizard dot com. We'll
have all the details up on the news talks He'd
be website as well for.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
More from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live to
news talks he'd be from nine am Saturday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
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