TV Guide

It‘s not easy being Eddie Izzard in America. A heterosexual English transvestite comedian touring a country that makes little distinction between Britons and homosexuals, let alone straight TVs and queer ones, Izzard is a standup whose shows are filled with long, elliptical jags of idiosyncratic humor, obscure historical references, and internal dialogues that trail off into uneasy silences.

”Robert Graves,“ Izzard says, explaining how he works historical characters into his routine, ”took the bones of history in I, Claudius and filled in all the characters, saying, ’They could have been like this.‘“

Clearly, Eddie Izzard is an English comic very different from fish-and-chips standups like Alexei Sayle and Frank Skinner -- the kind of ”bloke“ funnymen who curse, wear leather jackets and talk a lot about drinking and messy sex, and who, to Americans sedated by daily doses of Leno or Letterman, seem little more than soccer thugs with microphones. Izzard also curses, of course, but his spiel so celebrates history and pop culture that we never notice its many ”fuck-all“s -- yet neither does his routine’s smartness come off as cerebrally intimidating. He is a one-man Monty Python crew, a surreal Seutonious leading us through questionable interpretations of history.

At first glance, Eddie Izzard would seem an impossibly hard sell in this country, yet his maiden tour here, 1998‘s Dress To Kill, was a coast-to-coast smash, leading to an HBO special that spread his name even wider -- paving the way for his new performance, Circle, opening June 13 at the Henry Fonda Theater.

On one particular afternoon Izzard sits puffing on a cigarette in the Living Room, as the Chateau Marmont’s lounge is known. He‘s staying here to get a little R and R -- though he’s been lined up for a full press of interviews -- before appearances in Vancouver and Seattle. ”You couldn‘t possibly,“ he almost whispers into a cell phone, ”get me some American Spirit cigarettes, could you? The yellow ones.“ He’s made California‘s anti-smoking obsession a keystone of his act, predicting a day when we’ll be forced to socialize in libraries. ”No smoking in clubs where bands are playing is insane. You can‘t smoke in the Viper Room -- what self-respecting viper would go there?“

Trim if not sleek, the 38-year-old resembles a wayward son of Oliver Reed or Ozzy Osbourne, his eyes poised to go into their trademark pop at any moment. He’s sporting only a little liner around them today and wears a black long-sleeved T-shirt, old black 501s (cuffed), a Guess? woman‘s watch, a small earring and striped high-heeled sandals. He looks, in the subdued light of the Living Room, ready to take on the press.

”I am an action transvestite,“ he says. ”I always wanted to be Emma Peel“ -- just one way Izzard defines himself onstage. A silkier persona, the ”executive transvestite,“ is another. ”I feel that I’m a cross between a butch and a femme lesbian,“ he says, explaining his conflicted personality. Of course, such contrasts may be lost on his audiences, even in the relatively enlightened U.K.

”Everyone assumes I‘m gay,“ he says. ”Before, I said I was heterosexual because I’ve always fancied women. And then journalists wrote it up as ‘He insists he is heterosexual’ -- implying the opposite. So I said forget the heterosexual bit, I‘ll just say I’m a male lesbian. Oh, it gets confusing, but I think sexuality is confusing.“

Izzard worked his way up from street performances in the 1980s, to the club circuit, to Edinburgh. ”My mum died when I was 6, and I think my childhood got knocked off and emotionally crashed there,“ he says, trying to explain his drive to perform. ”Later I came back and reclaimed that kid who was preserved as a 6-year-old. And adults seem to really like an adult behaving as a child. But if something works I tend not to analyze it too much.“

In Dress To Kill, American audiences got to see Izzard‘s full range of weirdness in a show that ran two and a half hours -- unheard of, for standup -- and during half of which he gave the appearance of a slightly drunken man talking to himself. Which was part of the show’s genius: What often seemed like abrupt self-realizations or free-associative ad libs were actually pre-planned moments so convincingly delivered that Izzard often gave the impression of a comedian suddenly confronted by a career crisis. The show wheeled from a Cockney-voice version of Star Wars, to an overview of Britain‘s impoverished manned space program (”astronauts“ climbing up very long ladders to see over rooftops), to loony impersonations of entire religions and nation states.

Circle promises to cover similar ground, although Izzard’s appearance has somewhat changed. He took to Dress To Kill‘s stage with frosted hair and blue eyeliner, worn along with a woman’s Chinese silk tunic and black PVC pants. Totally femme, if not flaming. Advance word, however, has it that for Circle, Izzard‘s look has butched up a bit by including a pair of trousers under a minidress, high-heeled boots and, sometimes, a goatee.