Off to see the Izzard
Nov. 28th, 2003 11:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaYesterday, Frances and I escaped out of work mid-afternoon, and hurled ourselves up a series of motorways to Samantha's house. For once, the M40 obligingly didn't turn out to be stuffed full of horrible traffic, and we made reasonable time: with a quick detour to an off-licence, we were in Samantha's kitchen by about quarter to seven.
Chaos was ensuing there, with Samantha trying to cook dinner, Andy carrying random white goods round the house (I never did quite work out why) and S's parents wombling around vaguely having had a hard day clearing the house they're selling. I got handed a pan of boiled eggs to shell, which kept me out of mischief.
Dinner on the table, wine opened, both consumed, out again, into Andy's car and off for Nottingham, where we were going to see Eddie Izzard. As Frances said on the way out: "Mmmm. Wine. Mmmm. Tasty food. Mmmm. Eddie Izzard. Sometimes life doesn't suck."
We found all the traffic that hadn't been on the M40. It was all in Nottingham. All of it. According to the Nottingham Arena's website, we wanted to follow signs for the city centre, then follow signs for the Arena . Simple ? You'd think - fortunately, we had a map, and directions from Samantha's mum. Fifteen minutes before the gig was due to start, we were (we believed) relatively close to the Arena, but moving at a rate of a yard every minute or so, and no idea where to park. I bailed out of the car and went exploring, fortunately finding free street-side parking. We walked round to the Arena in a couple of minutes. Throughout this entire process, we saw exactly no signs for the damn place.
Then the fun started. My ticket said on it:
BLOCK BBC
O 45
Which we read as "Block O, seat 45". Not a problem, till we discovered the Blocks were numbered 1-20. We asked the people selling programs: they had no idea, they believed the blocks had just been changed from letters to numbers, we should ask the bar staff.
The bar staff looked blank, why the hell should they know ?
Making a wild stab, we thought we'd try Block 14, you know, O being the 14th letter and all.
We found an information desk, I asked - apparently we were Block BBC, not Block O. The lady turned away, I pointed out this still didn't help, which of Blocks 1-20 was that ? She was slightly exasperated - Block BBC was "the floor", of course.
We headed into the central section (like the stalls, so presumably the floor), and finally found some staff who were prepared to direct us. Out again, round a bit, in through another door, down some stairs, past about seven different Row Os, til eventually someone was prepared to admit to knowing where our seats were.
So, Mr Izzard live: very funny, of course. But... I'm not sure comedy necessarily works like bands. I'm not really that sure that it was a significantly better experience than watching the video which will no doubt be released of the tour. Since the options were to watch the teeny tiny little man on the stage, or the big video projection behind him, this feeling was probably amplified.
This was the first gig of the English tour (he's been in America, presumably with the same show), but some stuff was obviously material-for-the-English-market, and he hadn't quite ironed out the this-is-bizarre-but-funny/ this-is-just-bizarre-and-a-bit-flat areas. Some chunks of the show really were a bit "eh?" - but others were hilarious.
Good evening, all in all... I laughed a lot. We even were filled with sufficient bonhomie that we did not beat to death the people in front of us who got progressively drunker and talked loudly all the way through the second half. (Pay over twenty quid for a ticket, then get ratted, so you won't remember it, and not listen anyway? I don't understand people.)
Oh, and I like either his, or the Arena's, choice of music: Pulp and the Ramones while we were waiting. Beatles in the interval, which I'm less bothered about, then they went back to playing Different Class. Which I really must buy myself another copy of.
Chaos was ensuing there, with Samantha trying to cook dinner, Andy carrying random white goods round the house (I never did quite work out why) and S's parents wombling around vaguely having had a hard day clearing the house they're selling. I got handed a pan of boiled eggs to shell, which kept me out of mischief.
Dinner on the table, wine opened, both consumed, out again, into Andy's car and off for Nottingham, where we were going to see Eddie Izzard. As Frances said on the way out: "Mmmm. Wine. Mmmm. Tasty food. Mmmm. Eddie Izzard. Sometimes life doesn't suck."
We found all the traffic that hadn't been on the M40. It was all in Nottingham. All of it. According to the Nottingham Arena's website, we wanted to follow signs for the city centre, then follow signs for the Arena . Simple ? You'd think - fortunately, we had a map, and directions from Samantha's mum. Fifteen minutes before the gig was due to start, we were (we believed) relatively close to the Arena, but moving at a rate of a yard every minute or so, and no idea where to park. I bailed out of the car and went exploring, fortunately finding free street-side parking. We walked round to the Arena in a couple of minutes. Throughout this entire process, we saw exactly no signs for the damn place.
Then the fun started. My ticket said on it:
BLOCK BBC
O 45
Which we read as "Block O, seat 45". Not a problem, till we discovered the Blocks were numbered 1-20. We asked the people selling programs: they had no idea, they believed the blocks had just been changed from letters to numbers, we should ask the bar staff.
The bar staff looked blank, why the hell should they know ?
Making a wild stab, we thought we'd try Block 14, you know, O being the 14th letter and all.
We found an information desk, I asked - apparently we were Block BBC, not Block O. The lady turned away, I pointed out this still didn't help, which of Blocks 1-20 was that ? She was slightly exasperated - Block BBC was "the floor", of course.
We headed into the central section (like the stalls, so presumably the floor), and finally found some staff who were prepared to direct us. Out again, round a bit, in through another door, down some stairs, past about seven different Row Os, til eventually someone was prepared to admit to knowing where our seats were.
So, Mr Izzard live: very funny, of course. But... I'm not sure comedy necessarily works like bands. I'm not really that sure that it was a significantly better experience than watching the video which will no doubt be released of the tour. Since the options were to watch the teeny tiny little man on the stage, or the big video projection behind him, this feeling was probably amplified.
This was the first gig of the English tour (he's been in America, presumably with the same show), but some stuff was obviously material-for-the-English-market, and he hadn't quite ironed out the this-is-bizarre-but-funny/ this-is-just-bizarre-and-a-bit-flat areas. Some chunks of the show really were a bit "eh?" - but others were hilarious.
Good evening, all in all... I laughed a lot. We even were filled with sufficient bonhomie that we did not beat to death the people in front of us who got progressively drunker and talked loudly all the way through the second half. (Pay over twenty quid for a ticket, then get ratted, so you won't remember it, and not listen anyway? I don't understand people.)
Oh, and I like either his, or the Arena's, choice of music: Pulp and the Ramones while we were waiting. Beatles in the interval, which I'm less bothered about, then they went back to playing Different Class. Which I really must buy myself another copy of.
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Re: Live Comedy
Date: 2003-11-28 08:40 am (UTC)Is this the Sexie tour still? If so, I think the DVD's already out, or due out for Christmas, or some such.