Comedians do not tend to do Greatest Hits tours like ageing pop stars. But Eddie Izzard has a formidable back catalogue and has dusted it off for Remix, which could become a farewell tour. She says if selected as Labour's prospective MP for Brighton Pavilion and she wins the seat in the next election she will quit stand-up.
The show is not just revisiting past glories though. Izzard – preferring she/her pronouns and also using Suzy but still billed as Eddie – adds new touches to old favourites. It is a process that bears fruit in some places and feels superfluous in others.
Diehard devotees may well want to hear the Star Wars Death Star Canteen routine or the Cake Or Death riff exactly as they heard it on VHS back in the 1990s. Instead the pony-tailed 61-year-old put past ingredients into the comedy blender and freshened them up with a mix of autobiographical memories and comments on politics and gender identity.
Izzard jokingly revealed that she initially wanted to become an MP to "take down Boris Johnson". Sometimes the tweaks did not quite slot in. One punchline that failed to land prompted a verbalised mental note of "should be funny" that got a bigger laugh than the actual joke.
It was the classics that prompted the most applause breaks. In the same way that the opening chords of a beloved song triggers cheers, Izzard's heavy breathing impression of Darth Vader, cueing up that Star Wars sketch, thrilled everyone.
Izzard's thoughts on the insect world notched up further bullseyes. Bees make honey, but do spiders make gravy? He span off beautifully into sublimely surreal territory to recall the time on a Canadian family holiday that a hornet got into their car and drove it away.
There was also a chance to relish a skewed take on Noah’s Ark, with the biblical boatbuilder sounding like a Sean Conneryish Glasgow dockyard worker. Elsewhere there was a suggestion that the murder of Julius Caesar coincided with the invention of the Caesar salad.
In fact there was a lot of historical humour here in various senses. Perhaps this tour marks the end of Eddie Izzard's own stand-up history. Remix might not win over many floating voters but for long-time fans it was never less than joyous to hear those legendary lines onstage for possibly the last time.
