Underplayed Gems

Live at the Ambassadors (1993)

Live at the Ambassadors poster
Original title
Eddie Izzard: Live at the Ambassadors
Directed by
John Gordillo
Genre
stand-up comedy
Country
United Kingdom
Runtime
1h 27m
Rating
6.8 of 10 from 14 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

This is a video recording of Eddie Izzard's 1993 stand-up comedy show from her debut run at the Ambassadors Theatre in London. It captures her early, less polished style before her cross-dressing became a major part of her act.

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What happens

Live at the Ambassadors is a video by Eddie Izzard made at her West End debut in 1993 at the Ambassadors Theatre. The show originally had a 4-week run, which was extended twice due to the popularity of the performance. The video led to Izzard being invited to the Just For Laughs Montreal Comedy Festival, awarded a British Comedy Award for "Top Stand Up Comedian", and receiving an Olivier Award nomination for "Outstanding Achievement". Live at the Ambassadors was Izzard's first show made available on VHS, which for many years was out of production and very difficult to come by. Izzard hated her physical appearance on the show, and was also on low performance rights with the copyright owner, and thus a DVD version will never be released. However, it is available on CD from the official Eddie Izzard website. Fans and critics alike recognise the change in Izzard's comedy over the years; Live at the Ambassadors is an example of Izzard's very early and less confident style of stand-up (during the interval, Izzard comments that the first half was ' a bit clunky at the beginning'). In particular, there is very little evidence of her cross dressing, something that would become a major part of the Izzard 'brand' later in her career, with only simple nail varnish obvious. However, her bizarre sense of humour has remained the same throughout performances, and various themes and ideas that can be seen in later recordings can be identified in Live at the Ambassadors such as Christian hymns (and religion in general), politics, history, cult television and wordplay/oddities within the English language. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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