''Live at the Ambassadors'' is a video by

Eddie Izzard Edward John Izzard (; born 7 February 1962) is a British stand-up comedian, actor and activist. Her comedic style takes the form of what appears to the audience as rambling whimsical monologues and self-referential pantomime. Izzard's stand- ...

made at her West End debut in 1993 at the Ambassadors Theatre. The show originally had a 4-week run, which was extended twice due to the popularity of the performance. The video led to Izzard being invited to the Just For Laughs Montreal Comedy Festival, awarded a

British Comedy Award The National Comedy Awards (known as the British Comedy Awards from 1990 to 2014) is an annual awards ceremony in the United Kingdom, celebrating notable comedians and entertainment performances of the previous year. The British Comedy Awards ( ...

for "Top Stand Up Comedian", and receiving an

Olivier Award The Laurence Olivier Awards, or simply the Olivier Awards, are presented annually by the Society of London Theatre to recognise excellence in professional theatre in London at an annual ceremony in the capital. The awards were originally known as ...

nomination for "Outstanding Achievement". ''Live at the Ambassadors'' was Izzard's first show made available on VHS, which for many years was out of production and very difficult to come by. Izzard hated her physical appearance on the show, and was also on low performance rights with the copyright owner, and thus a DVD version will never be released. However, it is available on CD from the official Eddie Izzard website. Fans and critics alike recognise the change in Izzard's comedy over the years; ''Live at the Ambassadors'' is an example of Izzard's very early and less confident style of stand-up (during the interval, Izzard comments that the first half was ' a bit clunky at the beginning').Archived a
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In particular, there is very little evidence of her

cross dressing Cross-dressing is the act of wearing clothes usually worn by a different gender. From as early as pre-modern history, cross-dressing has been practiced in order to disguise, comfort, entertain, and self-express oneself. Cross-dressing has play ...

, something that would become a major part of the Izzard 'brand' later in her career, with only simple nail varnish obvious. However, her bizarre sense of humour has remained the same throughout performances, and various themes and ideas that can be seen in later recordings can be identified in ''Live at the Ambassadors'' such as Christian hymns (and religion in general), politics, history, cult television and wordplay/oddities within the English language.

References

External links

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The Cake or Death Site
Eddie Izzard albums Stand-up comedy albums Spoken word albums by English artists Stand-up comedy concert films 1993 live albums 1993 video albums Live video albums {{comedy-album-stub