I hesitate to say "We're not comedy fans," but the fact of the matter is that we've never had any kind of inclination to go see a stand-up comic. Eddie Izzard is way above your average stand-up comic though in our minds (this may be a laughable statement to a comedy aficionado ... what do we know?), and we were psyched to have a chance to see him in Boston, at the Wang Theater, on May 8th.
Though I bought tickets online as soon as I could, they were still back in row M right. Not only was there a great response to this show, but he also announced two other dates after that and I believe sold them out too. For anyone to sell out the Wang three nights in a row is pretty impressive. So we were excited, as was everyone else who jammed into the Wang that Thursday night. We'd had dinner at Jacob Wirth's as normal for a weekday theater district show.
But I was a mite disappointed. He's done such radical humor in my mind, touching on the "funny" in all aspects of life, such as the Spanish Inquisition, American conservatives, British royalty, animal life on the savannah, the building of Stonehenge, Star Wars, and on and on. A friend warned me that I might puke if I was unprepared for a comic who'd get me rolling. But Eddie didn't get me rolling.
He came out in a posh (masculine) suit and heels and made me giggle a few times, though laugh-out-loud was nowhere to be seen. He could have been miked better; I missed a lot of his asides. The funniest parts of his act were when he reprised things he'd already done, like he did an excellent segue to his "Star Wars cafeteria" scenario.
The second set was better. He really had the audience in the palm of his hand there, as he explored areas he hadn't before. But there was nothing hysterical and the volume problems continued, though we were not far from the stage. Oh well, maybe I'll find it funnier on tape.
