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Creator / Suzy Eddie Izzard
aka: Eddie Izzard

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/izzard1.png
"Je suis un travesti executif... un travesti d'action!"

"So... uh... I'd better explain the tits. Um... didn't have those at school. Wanted to, but not in the school curriculum, even though I asked."

So, uh... yeah.

So! Suzy Eddie Izzard!

Born Edward John Izzard on February 7, 1962 in Aden, Yemen, she is a trans British comedian, actor, philanthropist, and social activist known for her style of rambling, free-associating monologues with pantomimic sketches, Conversational Troping by the fistful should she veer onto the subjects of TV and cinema (which she will), and for using Wikipedia to do her research.

She got her start as a street performer and fell into comedy after seeing how positively punters reacted the stream-of-consciousness banter she developed to keep them entertained as she freed herself from chains and strait jackets. Once she took to the stage, she combined this style with her love of languages and pop culture to create a form of comedy that is all her own. Because of this aforementioned linguistic bent, she's one of the few comedians who can perform in multiple languages: starting as bit parts about learning European languages (like Latin), she has gone on to do entire gigs in French and German.

Although she's best known for her stand-up comedy, Izzard has said that her true ambition was to become a serious and versatile actor. This can be seen in her filmography, which is filled with dramas and comedies in which she's played all sorts of roles, such as: master thief, Nazi defector, serial killer and... a talking car and a talking mouse. Oh, and a plastic Lord Voldemort. She's also a theatrical actor who's performed in plays on the West End and Broadway. She even received a Tony Award nomination for her role in A Day in the Life of Joe Egg.

Izzard is also famous for her philanthropy work, which often takes the form of ultra-long-distance running. Her first foray into this endeavor was in 2009, when she began a seven week mega-marathon run around the UK to raise money for Sport Relief. She had never done any serious running until the month before. She ran six days a week for 51 days, covering at least 27 miles per day, carrying a flag for each county in which she rannote , from London to Cardiff to Belfast to Edinburgh and back to London. She completed her 1,110 mile run on September 15, 2009 at Potters Bay and rescued a kitten along the way. Izzard was 47 years old at the time, and had completed her first marathon just three months before. In 2016, she ran 27 marathons in 27 days in South Africa, in tribute to Nelson Mandela (one marathon for each of his years in prison). More recently, Eddie has been aiming to finally perform twenty-seven marathons across Africa for Sport Relief, doing so despite being fifty-four.

Izzard has spoken openly about being gender fluid and about going through periods of wanting to be in "girl mode" and "boy mode" and changing how she dresses to reflect these shiftsnote . In 2020, she revealed that her preferred pronouns were "she" and "her". In 2023, she announced that she'd changed her name to "Suzy Eddie Izzard", saying that it was something she'd wanted to do since she was 10, though she continues to use "Eddie Izzard" professionally.

She also clarified that she is comfortable with people referring to her using both forms of gendered pronouns, saying: "my brain is coded both ways"note . She also continues to take on male acting roles and even suggested people refer to her using male pronouns while she's playing such parts.

Additionally, she is a strong supporter of the Labour Party, even doing Labour Party gigs. In 2022, she ran to be the party's candidate for Sheffield Central but came in second. She's not deterred, however, and says that she'll run in every election until she wins.

Izzard is so highly thought of as a comedian and performer that Thy Lord the Comedy God Himself, John Cleese, described her as the "Lost Python" (Izzard hosted a documentary and appeared with the remaining members of the troupe on BBC Two for their 30th anniversary). Eddie's most recent show Force Majeure was successful enough to continue across five continents - despite starting in 2013, and having the show released on home video while still touring, she still continued to sell out venues, playing dates in the USA up until July of the following year.

    Select acting credits 

Film

Television

"Wo ist das Trope, mein Herr? Wo ist das Trope?"

  • 20% More Awesome: In one show she promised to be 10% funnier than usual since the show was being recorded. Then she mused on how impossible that was to verify "unless you brought a sort of laughometer".
  • All of Them: Used in the "Trojan Horse" sketch to describe the Greek navy.
  • Alliterative Family: She jokes that Hannibal (the Carthaginian, not the cannibal) had three brothers named Hasdrubal, Havaball and Havabanana. As it happens, Hasdrubal did have a brother called Hamilcar, but that's not as funny.
  • Ambivalent Anglican: Parodies this in "Dress to Kill", describing the Church of England as "more of a hobby type":
    "Do come in, you're the only one today! Now, the sermon today is from a magazine that I found in a hedge..."
  • Animal Stereotypes: Played with for Pavlov's Cat, which is more...creatively uncooperative than actually malevolent.
  • As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Martin Luther:
    The Protestant faith was different. That was about Martin Luther, this German guy who pinned a note on a door saying, "'Ang on a minute!" But in German, so, "Ein minuten bitte! Ich haben eine kleine problemo... avec diese religioné." [beat] He was from everywhere."
  • Back for the Finale: Weird characters mentioned throughout the show tend to come back at the end for a last comment, especially Mrs. Badcrumble. Lampshaded in Stripped.
  • Bilingual Bonus: In Stripped, there's a sketch that involves two Roman soldiers speaking in Latin to each other; the "Latin" quickly devolves into a weird mosh of Latin, German, French, and English. In order to prove the superiority of English as a way of avoiding Poor Communication Kills. "Mit Elephanten." "Quod. The. Fuck."
    • In Dress to Kill she does a bit about how she believes that "D'you want a cup of coffee?" is a highly successful pick-up line. Later, she more or less repeats that bit in French, then says "If you don't speak French, by the way, all that was fucking funny." She also, by way of one of her characters, recaps the film Speed in French.
  • Black Belt in Origami: in the show Sexie, she claims to have one in "Sashimi".
    "If you know sushi, it's like that, raw fish, and you Fling. Raw fish. At people. Salmon! Salmon! Tuna! Salmon! ...Salmon! Tuna! The white one that's horrible! ...And that only gives you about ten seconds of shock where they're going, 'What the fuck? ...This is fish!' And when they're in the 'Whaaaa,' you go, 'Wasabi!!' "
  • Black Comedy: "Hi, I'm Crazy Eddie! I put babies on spikes! You want a rack o' babies? We got babies on racks!"
  • Brick Joke: Oh so much. She constantly references back to earlier jokes and characters in her routines. In fact, her routines are often just one brick joke after another.
    "And this is our leader, Mister Dog."
    • Even invoked both literally and figuratively — in one bit, after earlier proposing the Queen fight dogs with a weighted handbag:
      "Fucking handbag! ...With a brick in it! It's the Queen!"
    • Sometimes wraps up her routine with every character earlier referenced, bringing together Caesar, Pavlov, Mrs. Badcrumble, Robbie Burns and Noah on a shpeedboat.
  • Call-Back: Extremely frequent; while some are a Brick Joke, most shows have several vague, irrelevant references to earlier that can be extremely confusing unless you caught it the first time.
    [During the conclusion of Definite Article]
    Mother Nature: Pavlov, what are you doing here?
    Pavlov: Well, I've been trying to do things and [mumbles] ...banjo. [bell rings] Ooh, I’m hungry now!
    Mother Nature: Next we have... sheep! Good haircut, by the way [...] You wearing Blakeys? Mouse, what are you doing here?
    Mouse: [As Robert Burns (with a Sean Connery accent)] Well, I've got a space rocket out of jam... It won’t work, but... it’s not my best laid plan. It could go aglay... but Mrs. Badcrumble is coming, and Caesar, and the Australian guy...
    • Especially so in Force Majeure, where she ends up calling back to a few gags from several years ago. Granted, it works without prior knowledge, but it will be confusing if you don't know the Death Star catering bit from her previous tour.
  • The Cavalry: Referenced by name when Izzard says America showed up two years late for WWII "because you'd been watching US Cavalry movies."
  • Career Not Taken: Suzy sometimes jokes about the fact that she thought about joining the army before becoming a stand-up comedian, but she prefers the make-up she wears in her current job: "The army's only got that 'night-time' look, which is a bit slap-dash for me."
  • Chalk Outline: Captain Transvestite, the superhero who spends too long putting on make-up to actually help the dying person, but at least she can use it to draw a line round the body for the police.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Literally! In Dress To Kill early on she talks about how a kid grabbed a bunch of his grandfather's "arsenal" of weapons and went and shot up his school. Later on she's talking about how much she hates Scooby Doo characters other than Scooby and Shaggy.
    Scrappy-Doo, a magnum... [pretends to shoot a gun] ...thank you Grandad.
  • Continuity Nod: Her shows always feature little scenes with imaginary characters, who later start to appear in each other's scenes, eventually coming all together in the finale.
    • Also, her show Stripped contains references to her earlier shows.
      Half of you are now laughing, and the other half is going "What the hell is she talking about?"
    • Specifically, as of a gig in April 2010, after a Call-Back:
      [after half the audience's insane reaction to "covered with bees"]
      "If you don't get why they are laughing, I'm not going to explain it to you. Some people are just bee enthusiasts... I'm a bee enthusiast!"
    • A massive one occurs in the Force Majeure show, when she returns to the famous Death Star Canteen skit from Circle, culminating in a battle between God and Darth Vader.
  • Determinator:
    • Despite not having done any real preparation, she ran 1100 miles around the UK for Sport Relief, running the equivalent of a marathon a day for six days a week for 51 days. The accompanying documentary showed how much she struggled physically and mentally, but she never gave up even as she was breaking down and finished the gargantuan task for herself. She was given a special award in recognition of her accomplishment.
    • Also, her documentary, "Believe" falls into this. It is unbelievable how hungry she was to make it big, even at times when she was competing against the likes of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.
  • Dissimile: From the documentary following her multi-marathon run around the UK:
    Week 2: base camp. It's like Everest but if Everest was really flat...if you took Everest and put it down. So there's none of that up... and there's the snow... no snow... but you're running... Oh forget it.
  • Everyone Looks Sexier if French: Mentioned in one of her sketches in Dress To Kill. According to her, French actors play more "esoteric" characters in American movies: "Hello, my name is Pierre. I come from Paris. I have come to have sex with your family." "Help yourself!"
  • Genre Blindness:
    • Wonderfully parodied in the bit she did about horror movies - "I've got an idea, lets go camping in the Forest Of Death And Blood!" "Hey look, there's something moving in the forest about eight miles off! I'll just go and check."
    • Later she does a strange version of Breaking the Fourth Wall; she says that the people in those movies should listen to the music. Normally, she says, people would hear the music and turn back. She mimes going in various directions while humming ominous music. She chooses another direction and starts humming happy music. She chooses that path. Whereas, she says, the people in the movies are just idiots! They're just going along, saying "Fuck off, you cellists!"
  • Genre Savvy: She points out that no vampire would be a threat in real life as we're all too genre savvy, and we'd all do the sign of the cross, stake through the heart, and then garlic bread.
  • God of Chaos: Eddie prefers the idea of God as a chaotic, bumbling idiot to the perfect, all-powerful entity as portrayed in Abrahamic religion. In her version of the creation myth, Chaos lives in a caravan in deep space and created the universe completely by accident while lighting the pilot light of his oven in order to bake a flan.
  • Gratuitous French: In her earlier stand-up performances, she peppered in bits of French to punctuate her humor. Upon seeing the positive reception it received, she began expanding her use of the language until she was performing entire segments in untranslated French to anglophone audiences while getting huge laughs. Eventually, she took it further and started touring France and performing entirely in French.
  • Heroic RRoD: The documentary accompanying her cross-UK marathon showed that her body truly was breaking down and well-meaning, but conflicting, advice was making it worse. But she powered through to complete her task.
  • High-Tech Heaven: One of her standup comedy segments suggests that God failed to prevent the execution of Charles I because he was having trouble using the tablet computer that he uses to interface with the world.
  • Hurricane of Excuses: "I was dead at the time! I was on the moon! With Steve!"
  • Idiot Ball: Not by Eddie herself, but from the Watchdog report, courtesy of Anne Robinson. The basis for their report that she was supposedly recycling jokes from one tour to the next, when Eddie had actually just used similar jokes from her Dressed to Kill tour in her Circle tour, and the former of which hadn't been a UK tour but had seen a DVD release. Never mind the fact that some comedians recycle one joke to make up their entire career, or that musicians have a catalogue of greatest hits, but Circle had tons of cool stuff that wasn't in DTK, including the debut of Jeff Vader - runs the Death Star?.
  • I Like My X Like I Like My Y: Eddie likes her women like she likes her coffee: hot and strong, and with a spoon in them; or in a plastic cup; or covered in BEES!
  • Improvised Cross: One of her early stand-up routines has her discussing whether or not a finger-cross would ward off a vampire, which would essentially make Dracula more of an annoyance than a terrifying monster. Also, if your crucifix has been broken and looks more like a T-sign, can you still use it to ward off a vampire by holding it with your thumb stuck above it?
  • I Need to Go Iron My Dog:
    "My grandmother is on fire."
    "My cat's exploded."
    "I was with Steve! On the Moon!"
    "I was dead at the time!"
  • Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain:
    • She jokes about how Mussolini said Italians were fascist, but they really weren't:
      Mussolini said, "Right, we're all fascists," but most Italian people are always on scooters going, "Ciao!" ...And they're into football! And life! And they're not fascists. He said, "We're all fascists!" "Uh... All right, ciao!" No helmet on. All those 50's films like Roman Holiday. Everyone's just cool and hangs out.
    • Then there's her Darth Vader. "I am not Mr Stevens! I could kill you with a thought!"
    • Dracula and other "low-powered" vampires. Particularly post chainsaw.
    • The Spanish Inquisition as done by the Church of England, which segued into her eventual "Cake or Death?" routine:
      Eddie: The Spanish Inquisition would've never worked with the Church of England! (miming torture) "Talk, will you! Talk!" "But it hurts!" "Right, well loosen it up a bit for him..."
  • Informed Attribute: Played for Laughs: a few times after a long non-English bit, Eddie concludes by assuring those in the audience who don't speak the language that all of the preceding material had in fact been really funny.
  • Inherently Funny Words: A staple technique. She's particularly fond of the name Jeff.note 
    • And "jam".
    • Jeff, the Roman God of Biscuits!
    • And Kenneth.
    • Also Azerbaijan.
  • Insane Troll Logic: Her show occasionally descends into this. At one point, she "proved" the story of Noah's Ark was false by having giant squid complain about the lack of hand towels. She also claimed that anything which could swim or fly would have gotten away scot-free, and that the world should have been overrun by evil ducks and pilot fish as a result (the pilot fish with the huge teeth and the little light on their forehead. Yes).
  • It Will Never Catch On: "Jeff Fire, you are never gonna be famous!"
    Dr. Heimlich: No! My name is going to be famous in restaurants!
  • Lame Pun Reaction:
    • She once joked: "I was a very driven boy scout. Driven everywhere, I was." Ironically, the audience laughs, and she then groans at the fact that they actually laughed.
    • And then there was King Menelaos, who was a sponge cake.
    • And there's the Ottoman Empire, full of furniture for some reason...
    • From a show in Dallas:
      And so God created all these animals, but there's no food, so eventually they're all following Him around, saying 'We're hungry!' so God says 'Err ... badgers eat bok choi!' 'No we don't. And it's pak choi.' 'No, it's bok choi! Mandarin!' 'Cantonese.' 'Fine, you eat ... sprouting broccoli.' 'Eww.' 'I see badgers can be choosers!'" Cue massive audience groan. "What? You've heard too many pak choi, bok choi, sprouting broccoli, badger creationist jokes this week? Oh yeah, up to here. We're wading through them this Christmas. That old chestnut. Fuck off."
    • From her Dress to Kill show:
      Swindon here. We're monitoring you on our instruments. We've got you on a tuba. More quiet laughter — "That should be a bigger laugh for that joke, I think".
    • One of her earliest jokes, and the origin of her 'jam' catchphrase:
      "I went out last night had a few jars, then I went to another pub and had a few jars, then I went home and had another few jars. God I've got to stop eating so much jam.”
  • Lampshade Hanging: She does this a lot when the jokes don't get as much laughter as she had expected. This usually gets a much better round of laughter.
    • "Oh ho, you fucked up there, mate! No one laughed at that!"
    • "Why are Sean Connery and James Mason playing cows?"
    • "Oh, I've got your scythe! Very sorry...it was a mime problem, I think."
    • "Sporadic laugh, that was! It's like I've gone in and removed some of your entrails!"
    • [mimes taking note on hand] "Should be funnier."
    • [small amount of laughter] "Please, don't laugh too much."
    • "And as the audience worked that joke out..."
    • "Good comedy situation, I thought!"
  • Left It In: This trope is practically a catchphrase of hers, saying "We'll cut that out" usually once per show.
    "Baby Jesus": Sack of charcoal?
    Eddie: They've always got them at petrol stations. Yes, very funny gag, in England and France. Not in America, it goes down like a lead balloon.
    "Baby Jesus": What, don't they have sacks of charcoal at late-night-
    Eddie: No, they don't have it, it's a different thing.
    "Baby Jesus": So did you cut it out of the show?
    Eddie: No, kept it in, couldn't be buggered.
  • Left the Background Music On: "Unrepeatable" has a joke about the cast of horror movies being followed around by an orchestra, and listening to the music the orchestra plays as they travel in different directions to figure out which is the safest path.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: Because Americans are less interested in World News, her jokes about international affairs tend to fly over their heads, leading her to once exasperatedly ask, "Do you know there's other countries??"
  • Look Behind You: "Oh, look over there, a badger with a gun!"
  • Loophole Abuse: In Circle, when Jesus tells the rich "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven", the rich respond by getting blenders and very fine liquid jets, liquidising camels into a paste and trying to squirt the paste through a needle's eye.
  • Metaphorgotten: "I like my women how I like my coffee... COVERED IN BEES!"
    • "...hot, and strong. ...With a spoon in 'em."
    • "...in a plastic cup."
    • "They say that Britain and America are two countries separated by the... Atlantic Ocean. And that's true."
    • "...Separated by a Common Language, and a lot of fish. Which is true, we do have a lot of fish between us."
    • "Guns don't kill people, people kill people. But monkeys do too (if they've got a gun)."
      • "Guns don't kill people, people do. But you know, I think the gun helps, you know?"
      • "No, bullets kill people, actually."
      • "It's the bullet ripping through the body! That's what kills them! Huh!"
    • "Like the National Rifle Association says, 'It's not guns that kill people - it's maneouvres.'"
      • "It's just that certain noise they make."
  • "Metaphor" Is My Middle Name: From the introduction bit to her Glorious concert DVD "Danger could be my middle name... But it's John."
  • Mischief-Making Monkey: In Dressed to Kill, her bit about trying to fit "Le singe est sur la branche!" from beginner-level French classes into casual conversation turns into a struggle because the imaginary monkey keeps moving around.
    Eddie: Le singe est...est...le singe est disparu... Because the monkey would fuck off! He'd go and do his own thing. He was a bloody monkey! He was a cheeky monkey.
  • A Million Is a Statistic: She talks about this in regards to all the people killed by mass murderers, and how the public tends to be less affected by higher death tolls (this eventually segues into her "Cake or Death?" monologue).
    Eddie: Someone's killed 100,000 people, we're almost going... "Well done! You killed 100,000 people? You must get up very early in the morning!"
  • Namesake Gag: Jeff Fire, the caveman inventor, discovers a way to create warmth and light by rubbing pieces of wood together. He wants his invention to be called "Jeff" in his honour.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Spartan ninja sheep.
  • No Ending: Her early shows tend to abruptly cut off when she runs out of material. Lampshaded in "Dress to Kill": "I do like to end a show with that kind of '...oh.' feeling." Later shows instead have all the characters she's mentioned previously come Back for the Finale.
  • Omniglot: It's not uncommon for her routines to stray into foreign languages. Especially of note as, not only can Eddie speak Latin, but she is fluent enough in French and German that she performs non-English routines when touring Europe.
    "Je dois partir maintenant parce que ma grand-mère est flambée..."
  • ...Or So I Heard:
    In the old days [of the internet], porn would take forever to download, do you remember that? ...Friends tell me. ...Friends who can spell "porn."
  • Our Slogan Is Terrible:
    There was a big advertising campaign that said "Buy Mr. Dog for small yappy-type dogs, and maybe they'll shut the fuck up."
  • Overly Long Gag: Engelbert Humperdinck's dead. Or is he? No, he's fine. Or is he?
  • The Password Is Always "Swordfish": "The guy who made the software was called Jeff Jeffty Jeff. Born on the first of Jeff, nineteen-jeffty-jeff."
  • Percussive Maintenance: "And you SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER!"
    • "MAKE the NOISE! I LIVE for the NOISE!"
      • Which was in relation to osteopathy. So, percussive maintenance of the spine. Ouch.
  • Pluralses: In Definite Article:
    I hang-glide; you hang-glide; he/she hang-glides; we hang-glid; you hang-glidded; they hang-gliddededed.
  • Playing Against Type: Despite her comedy roots, most of her recent acting roles have been in dramas.
  • Pull Yourself Down the Spear: She has a long segment in her Stripped tour about a soldier trying this to defeat the enemy's extra-long spears.
  • Real Trailer, Fake Movie: The "Lust for Glorious" trailer from Glorious, which advertises the mockumentary as some sort of high-octane action movie.
    Eddie: I wanna live till I die. No more, no less.
  • Rearrange the Song: The intro music to her Dress to Kill special is a remixed version of that of Glorious. In addition, Glorious' theme appears on the Dress to Kill CD.
  • Recursive Reality: Apparently Jesus' birth involved Christmas presents and had a nativity set up.
  • Red Shirt: When Steve from the accounts department beams down with Captain Kirk, he's probably not coming back.
  • Running Gag: Izzard's Scottish clarinet teacher Mrs. Badcrumble, James Mason and Sean Connery playing various historical figures because they're the only voices she can do (Mason is almost always God), and jam is always mentioned in some shape or form. Extras will almost always be named either Steve or Jeff.
  • Rule of Three: Izzard herself has stated in an interview that she often draws humor this way.
    Sometimes you're hoovering away and it makes that funny noise. "A-jig-a-jig-a-jig-a-jig-a." And you carry on hoovering, thinking "Was that a bit of grit? Was that a piece of money? Or was that the treasure of the Sierra Madre?"
  • Rule 34:
    In the Fifties, the Queen was kinda sexy, in a... not-very-sexy kinda way... but she was. "Fancy the Queen! Yeah, got her picture on my locker-room door! Shag the Queen!"
  • Self-Imposed Challengeinvoked: Discussed in the "Stoned Olympics" sketch:
    At the Olympics, performance-enhancing drugs are banned, fair enough, but performance-debilitating drugs should not be. If you can smoke a joint and still win the 100m, fair play to you!
  • Sex Sells: "Oh look! Those two people like it. And they're shagging..."
  • Shaped Like Itself: When discussing becoming a beekeeper:
    I wanna be a beekeeper! I wanna... keep bees. Don't want them to get away, wanna keep them!
  • Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism: Fruit falls under "Inanimate, sentient plants", according to the spectrum described. Oranges are likened to the crew of Das Boot ("Kaptain: Zey are breaking in mit Finger Depth-Charges!" "Haff ze rind only come off in schmall chunks!" "Zey are schtill coming through!" "Push ze pips into bits zey vouldn't expect!"), and pears time their ripening to when humans aren't around for giggles.
  • Sophisticated as Hell: Does this a lot.
    • On her early attempts to chat up girls:
      "I didn't have the power to say, "Susan, I saw you in class today, as the sun shone with a brilliant light that caught your hair. It was haloed. You turned, your eyes flashed fire into my soul. I immediately read the words of Dostoevsky and Karl Marx, and in the words of Albert Schweitzer: "I FANCY YOU!""
    • Also described Adolf Hitler as "a Nazi shithead... as many eminent historians have pointed out".
  • Stealth Pun: "If we ever saw Dracula, we'd all do sign of the cross, and then we'd do stake to the heart, and then we'd do garlic bread...perhaps garlic bread as a starter, and then the stake."
  • Take a Third Option: Near the end of the "Cake or Death?" routine, somebody opts for cake and is informed that there's none left, only death. "Well, I'll take the chicken, then."
    Tastes of human, sir!
  • Take That!: During a bit about God rushing to get creation all done before the seven day deadline and subsequently cutting a few corners:
    God: [mimes throwing things down haphazardly] Toilets in French camping sites, there we go... English Football Hooligans, there we go, whatever that is... Mrs. Thatcher's heart... there we go... [mimes trying to mold the heart, then tossing it aside in frustration] Oh, fuck that... I know, I'll put a stone in, that'll work...
  • The Tape Knew You Would Say That: In Definite Article Izzard does a bit wherein a tape teaching French corrects the listener.
    Tape: Où est la plume de ma tante? Monsieur, où est la plume de ma tante? [Where is my aunt's pen? Mister, where is my aunt's pen?]
    Izzard: La plume de ma tante est près de la chaise de ma tante. [My aunt's pen is near my aunt's chair.] As well you know.
    Tape: Oui, la plume de ma tante est près de la chaise de ma tante. [Yes, my aunt's pen is near my aunt's chair.]
    Izzard: How does this tape know what I'm talking about?
    Tape: Où est la plume de mon oncle? [Where is my uncle's pen?]
    Izzard: La plume de mon oncle est bingy bongy boogy bongy.
    Tape: Non! Pas de tout! Je ne connais pas bingy bongy boogy bongy! Qu'est-ce que vous dites?! Vous êtes une putain! [No! Not at all! I don't know bingy bongy boogy bongy! What are you saying?! You are a whore!]
    Izzard: *indignant gasp* Je suis pas une putain. Je n'ai pas le sexe pour l'argent. Qu'est-ce que vous dites, vous, cassette? [I am not a whore. I don't have sex for money. What are you saying, you cassette?]
    Tape: Oh, oh pardon. Je suis désolé. Vous avez raison. [singing] Je suis seulement pauvre cassette. Et je, je n'ai pas de pantalon. [Oh, oh pardon me. I'm sorry. You're right. I am only a poor cassette. And I, I have no trousers.]
    • And again in the German version:
      Tape: Wo ist das Kind, mein Herr? Wo ist das Kind? [Where is the child, sir? Where is the child?]
      Izzard: Das Kind ist in dem Flughafen. [The child is at the airport.] As well you know.
      Tape: Ja, das Kind ist in dem Flughaben. Aber warum? [Yes, the child is at the airport. But why?]
      Izzard: Well, I'm not really sure. Perhaps he likes the airplanes.
  • Tastes Like Chicken:
    Airline passenger: I'll take the chicken, then, please.
    Cabin staffperson: [encouragingly] Tastes of human, sir.
  • Timmy in a Well: With Sharky the friendly shark (but not that friendly). He just happens to rescue a lot of one-legged kids: what of it? They were one-legged when he found them. Really.
  • Trans Equals Gay: She's had to deal with the fact that many people assume she's attracted to men because of her being trans when in fact she identifies as being closer to a lesbian. One routine had her pointing out that even though people like to equate gay men and drag queens, there is "a crowbar separation" between the two.
    Most transvestites fancy girls, you can tell people that. "Most transvestites fancy girls." "Who told you that?" "A transvestite told me that!"
  • Translation by Volume: She did a bit about this trope (talking loudly and/or slowly to foreigners), where Brits in France would try to order the same foods from home, but speak with greater volume and enunciation.
  • Turbine Blender: When a bird gets sucked into an engine they call it "birdstrike". It's not birdstrike, it's "enginesuck"!
  • Two-Faced Aside: A running gag from Dress to Kill involves turning a Blatant Lie about just having found out that a certain person has died, then admitting to lying, into an endless cycle of these.
  • Unexplained Recovery: She tells a story about taking a chartered plane to a gig. Every time she complained about the pilot having eaten the complimentary cookies, the pilot would threaten to crash the plane. They ended up hitting a mountain. Eddie died!
  • Unplugged Version: Stripped. Izzard felt that her outfits and routines were becoming too elaborate. For this tour, she decided to go simple and wear men's clothing in the form of a dress shirt and jeans with a tailcoat for a touch of flair while simplifying her set so she didn't go off on as many tangents.
  • Verbal Backspace: "You! Cake or death?" "Um, death, please—no! Cake! CAKE! Sorry..."
  • Verbal Tic: "So... yeah." Acknowledged and occasionally lampshaded ("So... affirmative.")
    • The back original video box of 'Glorious' was completely plain except for a simple 'So... Yeah' written in tiny script.
  • Villains Out Shopping: "I will have the penne al'arrabiata."
  • Vulgar Humor:
    • Notably averted. She does curse a lot in her act fairly liberally, but she seldom - if ever - does any truly vulgar material. And even with the cursing "fuck" is never in reference to sex (which she calls "shagging"), and "shit" is never a reference to excrement (which she calls "poo"). The end result is that she swears a lot, but the act as a whole comes off childlike and charming, and her DVDs are easily rendered family-friendly by applying the bleeped audio option which is always included.
  • What the Hell Is That Accent?: During the James Bond bit in Definite Article, there is a Russian agent whose voice, courtesy of Izzard's usual skill with accents, slides all over the place without ever quite hitting Russia. Lampshaded: Bond challenges him on it, and the agent claims that he has an experimental voice synthesizer that allows him to imitate any accent but unfortunately it's currently stuck on the shop demonstration setting.
  • Wholesome Crossdresser: Izzard herself used to identify as such, though now identifies as genderfluid and uses she/her pronouns.
  • Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Lampshaded and then some in the Engelbert Humperdinck routine.
    "What shall we call our son so he does not get the shit kicked out of him at school?"
    "We shall call him Engelbert!"
    "Yes, that'll work!"
  • You Meddling Kids: Referenced to and lampshaded as Izzard often does.
    God (as James Mason): [listens to Jesus go on a rant about various Christian groups] And what does the Holy Ghost think of all this?
    Jesus: Oh, he's useless, dad, got a sheet over her head these days.
    Holy Ghost: ...Whooooh, Holy Ghost, Holy Ghost!
    God: Holy Ghost, this isn't an episode of Scooby-Doo!
    Holy Ghost: ...And I would have succeeded, were it not for those pesky God and Jesus fellows!

"So... yeah."

Alternative Title(s): Eddie Izzard

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