“Oh, the squirrel-manity!”

There’s one thing you can guarantee about an Eddie Izzard gig… that there will be a wide selection of animals exclaiming about some issue affecting their lives, oh and a healthy dose of history. Guess what – he still delivers all that, and much more, but what’s missing is his usual choice of sparkly clothing. For some reason, Mr Izzard is now cutting a suave figure in jeans, white shirt and a long backed jacket for his Stripped tour in London. This shouldn’t come as such a surprise, since last time we saw him in Montreal he was wearing much the same, but tonight was a much, much better show. Tighter, more laughs, and more cute animals complaining about over-crowding on the ark.

Stripped is standard Eddie fare, ramblingly hilarious discursions on how the world can be put to rights, how cool iPhones are and how giraffes hide. What’s good to see is that after so long punting the LA stand-up scene, he seems very happy to be back on home ground. The jokes seem more relevant to a UK audience, although at times the American references passed most of the audience by. That said, the audience didn’t seem to mind – and that audience included random celebrity attendees Lenny Henry & Dawn French.

So another big thanks to Mr Izzard for another splendid night, and to those of you who don’t have tickets – get your arses down to the returns queue like we did and keep your fingers crossed! It’s worth the wait.

The Unofficial History of the Milliways Adventure

Many, many years ago Douglas Adams got together with Infocom to produce the remarkably successful Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy game. Then, being Douglas, he got bored before the sequel was written. Now you can find out some of what happened behind the scenes that meant that Milliways was never released. Fascinating stuff.

Neil Gaiman n the Gender of Books

Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite authors, and also a prolific blogger. Not only do we get a glimpse into his alternatingly calm then hectic life, but he also takes the time to write essays on how his stories are formed. One of these is on the subject of what gender your story has, and it’s a fascinating read for anyone interested in the art of story telling.