Just listened to Eddie Izzard being interviewed by Frank Skinner on the Radio 4 programme "Chain Reaction" (not something I have ever listen to before - just stubbled upon it on the "listen again" service)
It was so inspiring. The man seems to have clear long-held ambitions and no sense of fear. And in combination those 2 traits have served him well.
He talked about how he started off in comedy by doing street performing, which is the most embrassing experience he's ever had - yet he would keep going back, doing it over and over, sometimes performing to audiences of zero, until he progressed up the ranks to being allowed to perform *inside* a building. (Although he says lampposts were a great audience - they wouldn't hurl insults...)
Skinner pointed out that he broke many rules of stand-up, for example arriving for a gig with no notes or prepared material. Izzard said he would sometimes try to write it down ("what if cats ruled the world?..") but once in writing he'd instinctively rationalise ("of course cats couldn't do that!") - it killed all the best ideas because it opened them up to his own censorship.
He would always try and push his own boundaries. The best moments in stand up, he said, are the newer, embryonic ideas. Once a routine becomes established and routine, it loses that spark and edginess. So the script has to keep changing. They recalled an incident when Izzard was pushing Skinner to try out his new material in a London club (whereas Skinner would normally only tiral it in safer smaller gigs). Izzard was saying that it didn't matter if the material fell flat - he'd make better progress by trying and failing.
A lot of his wise words resonated with stuff I've learnt about improv; the importance of taking risks, pushing past accepted norms, the comedy of failure, the value of spontaneity, and avoiding self-censorship.
And if it works in Improv, it also works in life...
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