Eddie Izzard: Believe Me, a memoir of love, death, and jazz chickens

Stripped back of flamboyance, standing strong with the tools of a small multimedia scrapbook flashing up photographs of bygone homes and milestone events from Izzard’s past, this was an intimate and skilfully shared peak at the building blocks that have brought him to where he is today.

Strictly speaking, tonight was a book reading from Izzard’s memoir, the companion piece – he says – to the 2010 Emmy-nominated film ‘Believe – The Eddie Izzard Story’. It gently nudges and lifts alive selected stories that start on his written page but gather the exclusive and delightful footnotes of his own in the telling – “they said it didn’t exist in America” – and the tangental flights of fancy he is so well known for, this time school sports day memories replacing God on a speed boat.

A treat for a fans, an intimacy that felt honoured as he revelled in borrowing confidence from his future in order to go to the Edinburg Fringe, and respectfully marked young life events around the milestone of his mother’s death. For someone whose on stage material would more usually turn to big ideas and the surreal, this was a deeply personal sharing combining times of reflection with those of revelry utilising the marvellous performance skills Izzard has at his fingertips. A fine way to touch the soul.

Concert Hall, Brighton Dome, 8 July 2017

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