By NICK SMITH
Channel Izzard (TV One, 9.40 pm) takes a viewer into a weird and wonderful world.
Fronted by self-proclaimed "male lesbian" Eddie Izzard, the show opens with video footage of a London alley containing a rubbish skip - "skip vision."
Images of various citizens rummaging through the skip to rescue a damaged shop dummy sets the tone for the hour-long show.
Izzard is a little like those rubbish-bin rummagers himself, as he wanders verbally along a very non-linear time line, picking out bizarre details from the history of humanity.
Take Latin. A dead language, perhaps, but Izzard's teachers still managed to imbue the ancient tongue with its own flowing and elegant accent.
This is all the set-up that Izzard needs to demonstrate how the Romans would fare wandering into Gaul trying to quell the locals, armed merely with impressive elocution.
"You must be Chief Vercinga-torix, I recognise you from the Asterix cartoon."
It is a very funny sketch, and words on the page don't do it justice - a complaint common to television reviewers attempting to convey the sheer hilarity of stand-up comedy.
Then there is his exposure of Pavlov, apparently a Welshman by the name of Gareth Evans who changed his name when he visited Russia and his experiments with his cat began to fail.
"Day three, rang bell. Cat said he had eaten earlier. Day four, went to ring bell but cat put his paw on it. Then cat rang his own bell and I ate food."
Izzard is justifiably famous, described by no less than John Cleese as the funniest man in Britain, but known as much for his cross-dressing as his sense of humour.
However, his reputation as a "sexy transvestite" is a bit of a misnomer. Sure, he is resplendent in lipstick and chandelier-like earrings, but his magnificent wardrobe of black PVC jeans and red-leather double-breasted jacket hardly constitutes woman's attire.
Neither is he camp in the tradition of Julian Clary. Izzard is first and foremost a comedian, a trade he has plied since the mid-70s.
A line from the show's publicity - if Spike Milligan was 50 years younger and also a sexy transvestite, he would be Eddie - is close to the mark.
There is something wonderfully goonish about his off-the-wall ramblings, his lateral view of the world and his physical buffoonery.
And unlike Clary, Izzard does not mince words, liberally sprinkling his material with expletives that TVNZ assures us will not be bleeped.
It's terrific stuff, and the perfect appetiser for Izzard's one-man show later this month at the Town Hall, part of the Laugh Festival.
His stage act, titled The Circle, promises two hours of inimitable stream-of-(un)consciousness rambling, absurd sketches and free-associating wit. If it's anywhere near as good as his television show, it will be unmissable.
Eddie Izzard - Rummaging through the rubbish bin of humanity
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