Watch or listen to the stand-up comedy special 'Glorious' (1997) by Eddie Izzard on Comedy Buff. Transcript available.

Eddie Izzard

Glorious

Time Square Well, Time Square! We've just got to do a show. We have to do a show right here. And it's brilliant to do it in Time Square because there's always an audience here. There's always a bunch of people who've got enough time to hang around and watch me talking complete rubbish. I've lost my comedy! Hello? You've got to be on the edge. There's no one here at the fast stage. Some people are on the edge.
They're right on the lid. As you've never seen him. You will be the movie. You will be the star. You don't love me anymore! International comedian. I love your world. It's very good, isn't it? Don't worry. I'll come. Or Jay Izzard. You think it's easy to wear lipstick? I love your lipstick. Enters the American dream. I want to be bigger than McDonald's. The first image we want to get across is girls.
When do we go to bed? A lot of sex. Eddie, we need a standing. Eddie. I'm willing to prostitute myself. Not nothing. Attack your way. In a good way. Fighting. Tracy. My name is not Tracy. I want to live till I die. No more. No less. You can't fight off the speed of the life he lives. Leave me a fucking load! Moody. Impression. I don't give a shit about those fucking girls in Paris. We do need a section on your background.
I was born in Yemen. So I've got to say, I was born in France. The horror! I want money. Fame. I want integrity too. All right, all right. I was born in there. Lust for glorious. Danger could be my middle name, but it's John. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl.
I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl.
I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl.
I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl.
I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl.
I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl.
I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl.
I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. I want to be a little girl. Occasionally the lights might. You might find the lights come up at the side.
And you go, oh, I can see myself. And that's just people. We just want to know that you're still there. And so there might be a few things like that. But I'm going to be extra funny tonight. Just for you people. Extra. An extra 10% funny. You can't check, can you? Ah, I don't know. Unless you came every night with a sort of laugh omitting. Well, that's just fine. Fucking hell. So. So. Comedy. Big fuck off room.
I've forgotten it now. Um. Oh, yes. The beginning. The Old Testament. The beginning of the world. The Old Testament. It was. That's where stuff began. In the Christian version of things. Everyone had big beards. Big fuck off beards in the Old Testament. And the deep voices. Oh, I say to you. And Elijah in the clouds. And the chariot in the burning bush. Oh, beard on fire. Shit. Into the Dead Seas.
Ooh. A goatee. Even the dogs in the Old Testament. Big beards. Woof. Woof. I say to you. A biscuit. Thank you. In English comic books. Woof. Woof. In French comic books. Woof. Woof. Woof. Ah. So. Um. So God. God created the world in seven days. A foolish brag, I feel. If I was God, I'd say I'm going to create the world over a number of days. Ah. Not sure how long. Might be a bit pressed. You know.
Too much pressure. Seven days dead. Although, do it like Microsoft. It's going to be done by Saturday, Tuesday, next week. About a month. We're going to bring it out. When we're fucking ready. Right? I think God was actually in bed. And, er. And his mum said, "Get out of bed, will you God? You'll miss the best part of the day." His mum was Mrs. Bad Crumble. Get out of bed. She's just my clarinet teacher.
Right? Well, get out of bed, God. You'll miss the best part of the day. And God, who was James Mason, said, "I won't. No, I won't get out of bed, Mother. Because I haven't yet created the best part of the day." Ah. Ah. Ah. Can't get me on that one. Box clever, you see. Oh, you wee young scallywag. I'll box you a bit later. So. So then, God created the world. And the first day, he created light, and air, and fish, and jam, and soup, and potatoes, and haircuts, and arguments, and small things, and rabbits, and people with noses, and jam, more jam perhaps, and soot, and flies, and tobogganing, and showers, and toasters, and grandmothers, and Belgium.
And the second day, he created fire, and water, and eggnog, and radiators, and lights, and Burma, and things that go, ugh, and Colonel Gaddafi, and Arthur Negus. And I think the third day, he probably got lists and said, "I can't remember what I've invented now. I've just been out of living so far." And so everything sort of built up all through the days. And you know, if you've got a deadline, you know how it works.
Everything builds right up to the end. I think that's the seventh day, God was running around, and I'm like, "Oh my God, what happened there?" Rwanda, better create Rwanda. Oh, sorry, I haven't quite done that. The Tower of Pisa, oh, it's leaning, oh, damn. Toilets in French camping sites, there we go. English football hooligans, there we go, whatever that is. Mrs. Thatcher's heart, there we go. Oh no, I'll put a stone in, that'll work, there we go.
The next week, I think people coming back going, "Rwanda doesn't work very well, infrastructure's fucked." I'm terribly sorry, I'll put some more jam here, and a mountain of cabbages, and a radiator. Thank you, that's just what we wanted. This is them dragging Rwanda back to lay it out on the map. No one got that. Never do that piece again. So, stuff happened. Yes, it did, it unfolded. And Cain killed Abel, and fatted calf, ooh.
And then there came a period later, I don't know, a number of centuries later, where God said, "No, no, everything is bad. I will send a flood, and kill everything, start again." I think it was the Etch-A-Sketch end of the world, basically. No, no. Don't know what that is, don't recognise that anymore. Remember with your Etch-A-Sketch, when you'd done the house, picture the house, and then you did a little sunshine up the top, and then you tried to do a dog down here, and you had to leave vapour trails all the way there.
Oh, bagger it. So God said, "I will send a flood, forty days and forty nights, and lots of umbrellas. But I will save two of everything, because it looks good, and a seesaw photo. Two hippos. Noah, stop what you're doing and build me an ark." And Noah, who's Sean Connery, playing the role, Noah. I'm working on a speedboat at the moment. I think it's much more exciting, bigger engine than a speedboat, and it can shoot across the water like that.
No, no, I want an ark, an ark with a big room for poo. Look, a speedboat, it'll really kick ass, it'll give great photos to the people in the Bible. We can get all the animals with long ears to sit along the side. Oh, fucking excellent. Excellent photographs. No, you build me an ark, and well, you can put a big engine in the ark if you want. Okay, I shall, I suppose. I shall compromise. So, uh, you started to build, to saw up pieces of wood to make the ark.
He, he, he, he, he, he. That's not actually how you start sawing, is it? You start sawing by going... He, he, he, he, he. It's impossible to start, isn't it? He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he. Then you get into that middle bit, he, he, he, he, he. Which feels good. He, he, he, he, he. Where you feel like your dad. He, he, he, he, he. Where your dad used to say, "I'm just going out to the garage to saw a plank of wood in half."
He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he. There we go. Now, Dr. Bedoski on Sunday television. The scent of mouth. Sunday's with my dad, that was. No, you want to have speed saw, don't you? Much quicker. Those power saws, much better. But sawing, it has a difficult start off. And then it goes into the better bit. And then in the end, it's back into... And after a while, Noah realised he was actually punching a baboon.
Oh, hitting me. Leave me alone, I'm trying to sleep. I'm not punching you, this is my mime. I'm sawing an arc, I'm making an arc. Get out of my mime. I don't want you in mime. What have you got against baboons in mime? Nothing, you can do your own mime, but not in my mime. Not on my mime. I've got, it's my motto, no baboons in mime. You don't know what you're talking about, do you? I did before, but I don't know.
So, he built an arc, and that was great. And then he went around collecting two heavy animals from all around the world, including two baboons, one a bit punch drunk. He was hitting me earlier, I don't know what's going on. He's going, "Okay, what have we got here?" "Two dogs, okay, two dogs, long ears along the side please." I'll explain it to you later, okay. "Two sheep, well done, on you get, sit along the side, there we go."
"Two cats, small ears, inside the boat." "Two ducks, the ducks going, we're not coming." "Well, there's going to be an enormous fuck off flood." "So, what's the big problem?" There's a huge hole in the whole flood drama because anything that could float or swim got away scot-free. And it was the idea to wipe out everything. He didn't say, "I will kill everything except the floating ones and the swimming ones."
"We'll get out due to a loophole." "All that in a James Mason voice." "I will kill everything except the floating ones and the swimming ones." "Loophole." "Sorry, I wasn't here, I was off stage in my trailer." "Someone else