Eddie Izzard: Force Majeure Reloaded

Eddie Izzard’s ‘Force Majeure’ isn’t your average West End comedy show. It’s not new – he first performed it in the capital in 2013. But then, it’s not exactly old either. For the last three years, he’s been touring it across 28 countries, performing it in his audience’s native tongue then adding the parts he likes as permanent features. So what we have is the ‘reloaded’ version. A sort of greatest hits. But with French bits.

The first half of ‘Force Majeure’ is spellbinding. It’s not just a romp through the kind of madcap Izzard antics that see Darth Vader and God duelling over spaghetti carbonara, or Julius Caesar seeking military advice from Marc Anthony; it’s a show about a show. The high-heeled comic steps around the fourth wall to point out that the reason a Martin Luther skit is performed in German is due to it having been introduced in Berlin. Or to explain that a surreal gag where a French king meets a dolphin is due to him building a skit for a Gallic gig based around the dual use of the word ‘dauphin’. When he explains exactly how well observations on the similarity of Welsh and Pakistani accents went down with audiences for whom English isn’t a first language (not very well, ‘but I talked them through it anyway,’ he chuckles), you feel part of his gang. This isn’t your average show. It’s like a social club. It’s lovely.

But then he comes back on after the interval and business seemingly lapses back into a straight-up comedy show. While the first half was all clever deconstruction of the fourth wall, the second part feels like comedic bricklaying; rebuilding the barriers then moving you to a more predictable ending. Shame, really. It’s by no means bad. It’s just that the first half promised more. Much, much more.

Read our interview with Eddie Izzard

And read our review of the original 'Force Majeure'