Eddie Izzard (also answers to Suzy) has migrated from stand-up comedy to serious acting, with solo performances of Great Expectations and Hamlet. But the role the 62-year-old really wants is to be the first trans member of parliament. Interview by Martin Samuel
Eddie Izzard has leapt up from our lunch table and is revisiting the first big laugh he ever got. He was a 12-year-old schoolboy in an end of term review, performing the role of a bad cricketer at bat. The adult Izzard first plays an abysmal mistimed shot, ungainly, like a drunk attempting Whac-a-Mole at a fairground. He then mimes an expertly executed cover drive, the shot the cricketer would like to have played had he been good enough. It’s a perfect vignette. A neat little satire on the sporting ego that still works 50 years later, even in floral Dolce & Gabbana heels and a black miniskirt.