Video  2002
 Eddie Izzard: Circle      Back      Home
Eddie: Other animals could have secret talents, like tigers might be good with banjos.
Eddie: [about Jesus] Christianity is his best film. That's where he was the 'Son of God'. Starring Jesus as the 'Son of God', where he said that famous line "Take your hands off her, you bitch!"
Eddie: There was Pope John if you remember, now there is Pope John Paul. The next Pope's gonna be John Paul George and we can see where they're going.
Eddie: Whales are intelligent. They do whale song.
[imitates whale song]
Eddie: We don't know what it means. But I think whales are travelling at 78. They're travelling at 78 speed, if we take them up to 45 speed we'll find they're singing.
[sings]
Eddie: I love you baby and if it's quite alright I love you baby, throughout the night, I love you baby, trust in me when I say.
Eddie: What I'm talking about is blasphemy! Blasphe-you! Blasphe-everybody in the room!... hm. 6 person joke, that. There we go.
Eddie: This is football we're talking about here, which you call bananas and you're reluctant to play it. But you play baseball, the World Series. You've won every year, America's won every year in that. Well done America.
Eddie: It was the Renaissance. The Re-Naissance. French for "rebirth". And that's why everything happened slap-bang in F - Italy. But they had a French name. It gave them a certain Je ne sais quoi, a certain savoir faire, a certain d?tante. A certain... cul-de-sac, a certain... Jacques Chirac. A certain... pomme de terre. A certain vie de la Dordogne. Fuck it.
Eddie: [about the Crusades] But they went down to get the Muslims out, the Islamic people out of Jerusalem, I believe it was that. And they were hacking into them 'I kill you! I kill you in the name of Jesus.' But the Muslim people 'No! Jesus is a prophet in our religion. We kill you in the name of Jesus.' 'Do you? I didn't know that. Jesus in your, oh right! Well I kill you for your dark skin, for Jesus was a white man from Oxford." 'No he wasn't! He bloody was not! He was from Judea, dark-skinned man, such as we.' 'Really? Look, we've come all this way, would you mind awfully if we hacked you to pieces? Just for the press back home."
Eddie: But then the Roman Empire fell like this- "oh shit". And we went into what the historians called the Stupid Fucker period. Where everyone was going -"er, I dunno. Is that a Roman road? Can we eat it?" Then there was the dark Ages. " I can't even see you! Where are you?"
Eddie: During the second world war Pope Pius the 12th was supposed to apologise not apologise, he was supposed to castigate Hitler for being a genocidal fuck-head with bunny rabbit ears. Um, but he didn't say that; he wimped out, and he's been renamed now, as Pope Gutless Barstard the first.
Eddie: He did apologise for the Spanish Inquisition. He said it was far too inquisitive. Supposed to be the Spanish Casual Chat.
Eddie: The right-wing papers in Britain, they loved it because they could sell all the newspapers. "You frenchy, froggy, froggy, frenchy. Our lovely beefy. You frenchy, froggy, frenchy". This was a Times editorial piece.
Eddie: They're not very good at naming Popes as well. They had a run of Piuses, it went like Hollywood, they had Pope Pius the first, the second, Pope Pius the third "The revenge of Pope Pius". Pope Pius the fourth, "This time he's pissed off." Pope Pius the fifth in 3D!
Eddie: [Leonardo da Vinci] And he invented the helicopter... that did... not... work. And so did I! Yeah. Did not work.
Eddie: [as Jesus, talking about the last supper] Well, what would you have done?
Eddie: [as God] I would have done cheese and wine, cheese and wine goes together much better than bread and wine. "Eat this cheese for it is my body."
Eddie: [as Jesus] But it's Judea, Dad. Cheese melts.
Eddie: [as God] Alright then, "Eat this cheese for it is my central nervous system." Hmmmm. Alright, alright, "Now eat these chicken drumsticks, for they are my legs, eat these carrots, they are my arms, eat this tomato, it is my head, and eat these oysters, they are my kneecaps."
Eddie: [as Jesus] If you do that Dad, your holy community is going to have priests with big trays yelling, "Who ordered the Body of Christ?"
Description
Live comedy with the master of sublime weirdness, Eddie Izzard, recorded in New York, 26 June 2000. Also includes a 30 minute behind the scenes documentary about Eddie's US tour. PROGRAM FEATURES * Circle feature commentary by Eddie Izzard. * Circle trivia track on feature. * Dress To Circle one-hour rough-cut of Eddie Izzard's Dress To Kill show in Paris (spoken in French). Previously released on the Dress To Kill DVD. * Dress To Circle commentary by Eddie Izzard. * 30 minute behind the scenes documentary about Eddie's US tour. * Subtitled in nine languages.

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 2 HOURS 20 MINUTES

Amazon.com
No one but madcap stand-up comedian Eddie Izzard can spin comic gold out of papal history, monkeys with guns, Jesus preaching to the dinosaurs, and cafeteria food on the Death Star. Circle, taken from his stand-up tour in 2000, doesn't have the astonishingly seamless free-associative flow of Glorious or Dress to Kill, his previous specials--which is to say, he's only intermittently brilliant, instead of supernaturally nonstop brilliant. We'll take what we can get, because Izzard can slip in surprisingly stinging commentary about international politics and religion, yet his impish smile suggests that he's only pointing out the obvious. He tosses out an idea and then plays with it like a cat plays with a mouse, flipping it around, teasing it out, pouncing, and then letting it go, only to sneak back up on it just when you'd forgetten it was there. Cheeky, subversive, and very, very funny. --Bret Fetzer