Shortly before playing to 6,000 people over two nights at the RDS, Eddie Izzard had played to 11,000 people in one night at Wembley Arena, London - a feat which is now recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest audience ever for a stand-up comedian in Europe. Obviously the fear here is that given the scale of his popularity, Izzard will have to play to the lowest common denominator in terms of reaching such a massive audience. Not a bit of it, he remains as wonderfully surreal and off-kilter as always.
He tottered on to the stage (looking resplendent in a knee-length leather skirt) in a pair of unwieldly looking stiletto shoes (an insurance risk?).
Most of the first half was taken up by his new hobby horse of "Europeanism" and the rather pathetic way in which nations still hate each other for spurious historical reasons. If it all sounds a bit like a well-meaning political lecture, it was anything but - Izzard can infuse even the most "normal" of topics with cunning leaps of imagination. It's not just the sheer charm of the man that impresses, it's also his ability to find humour where you would normally think none possible.
A very funny routine about the nature of heterosexual transvestism was followed up by undoubtedly the highlight of the night - an extended look at the Stars Wars phenomenon and, in particular, the role of Darth Vader. The notion of Darth Vader queuing up in the Black Star Planet canteen, might on paper, not amount to much, but in the hands of Izzard, it was transmogrified into tear-inducing comedy. What a wonderful Izzard he is.
