UK comic Eddie Izzard: major stops in Geneva, Zurich for 2013 "Force Majeure" tour
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Eddie Izzard is a man of many hats and few shoes who loves to run. He is bringing his Force Majeure comedy tour to Switzerland in 2013 to give people here a firsthand look at the funny part of the Izzard phenomenon.
The show will be performed in English 25-26 April 2013 at the Geneva Arena and 27 April at the Hallenstadion in Zurch, both major venues a first for comedy in English.
He’s arguably best known to the British world as a stand-up comic but he’s also a film and theatre actor who is greatly in demand. He’s made a name for himself as a political activist and he has raised £1.86 million for charity by running marathons.
Izzard told GenevaLunch in an interview this week that he created the new show, Force Majeure, because after four years of world tours doing his previous show, Stripped, including a stint in Paris doing the show in French, “it was just time to do a new show.”
It will be the most expensive tour any comedian has done, says Izzard, with 20 countries lined up: three months of touring in 2013 and three in 2014, with the second tour to include Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Stripped was a huge hit, taking Izzard to 34 US cities, on a vast European tour and in 2010 he performed at Madison Square Garden in New York, the latter a feat accomplished by only three other comedians.
He would have liked to have done the tour in one go, but his busy film, TV and theatre schedule doesn’t permit it. He’s starred alongside a wealth of big names in the film industry, including Bob Hoskins and Robin Williams in “Secret Agent”, Sean Connery in “The Avengers”, Uma Thurman in “My Super X Girlfriend”, George Clooney and Brad Pitt in “Oceans Twelve”, Judi Dench and Jude Law in “Rage” and Tom Cruise in “Valkyrie”. His stage appearances make an equally impressive list.
Izzard’s more immediate passion is running, notably barefoot. He caught the public eye in August 2009 when he ran 43 marathons in 51 days for the charity Sport Relief.
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For someone who moves so frenetically, onstage and off, he is remarkably low key in person. He told GenevaLunch he’s not on-stage or jokey all the time, as some performers are, and it’s not really an issue for those around him. He likes to watch movies to relax.
“I think I have a natural comedy instinct. So does my brother, my father, so I guess it’s genetic. I just like laughing.”
The running dates back to 2002, when ancient Greek notions of being fit in mind and spirit and body began to appeal. “I thought, that’s a good place to be. I had this idea I was designed for running. We all have this ability.” He meets people through running, enjoys the fact it is healthy and that he can raise money through it.
Barefoot running is new for him and he loves it. “It seems more hardcore, but it’s actually easier. The more you do the easier it gets. It feels strangely powerful.” We were moving without shoes for at least 2,000 years, he points out.
“The past is in your future. Running with shoes is like writing with gloves.”
By 2020 he intend to be doing another kind of running, for office, possibly as a member of Parliament. He’s been an active member of the Labour party since the 1990s and was most recently out stumping in March for Labour Mayor of London candidate Ken Livingstone.
Meanwhile, Izzard, who is good at getting down to the bare bones of matters, has a show to plan.
Ed. note: tickets go on sale Friday 4 May at TicketCorner. Details, International Comedy Club, run by Guy Stevens of Jackanapes Productions who, with Mike Perrin Productions in the UK is bringing Izzard to Switzerland.
Basel’s stinky flower, Geneva’s sexiest fingers study, Cern’s rumoured Higgs particles, US women skate to gold in Zurich
Cern's Alice experiment, particle collisions
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A giant stinky flower in Basel, ring fingers that mean true love, thrilling women’s ice hockey world finals – the international population in the Lake Geneva region disappears during the spring holidays, heading off on travels near and far, but the news doesn’t stop.
Here’s a brief roundup of what you might have missed:
Phew! but beautiful to behold, Basel’s corpse flower
Switzerland was on the world news map, with hundreds of articles about the amophophallus titanium, aka the “corpse flower” that pulled in an estimated 25,000 visitors to Basel. Key facts: it is one of the world’s largest flowers (technically: “largest unbranched inflorescence in the world” according to wikipedia), it smells of rotting flesh, and it grows in the wild only in Sumatra, Indonesia. The first cultivated flowering was at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London in 1889 and since then there have been few sightings of the rarely-blooming flower. Basel’s Botanical Gardens‘ two-metre high plant bloomed this weekend, for the first time in its 17 years, and the first such plant to flower in Switzerland in 75 years.
Check out his length, dear
A man’s ring finger length gives clues to his masculinity, researcher Camille Ferdenzi at the University of Geneva in Switzerland shows in her research on 2D:4D, the name for the ratio comparing second and fourth digits. Her work was published 19 April in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biology Letters. For an easier explanation, LiveScience unravels the mysteries of sex and the ring finger.
God or no god particles, Cern is intense
This one wasn't at the Hallenstadion
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Switzerland’s competition watchdog Comco is to investigate the five-year agreement, which came into force early 2009, between the country’s largest ticket-seller, Ticketron, and the Hallenstadion Zurich (AGH), one of its biggest concert venues. Comco will look into the details of the agreement which obliges the organizers of events at the Hallenstadion to offer least 50 percent of the tickets for sale through Ticketcorner.
Ticketcorner has been in the sights of the Federal Competition Commission before. In 2006, after an appeal, it was absolved of monopolistic behaviour.
Update 17:35 Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The 50-strong Rigdzin Buddhist community of Lausanne, who invited the Dalai Lama to speak at two days of conferences 4 and 5 August in Lausanne, is quietly putting the finishing touches on the preparations, 24 Heures and TSR report. The 12,000 tickets to the two-day event have sold out, but the events at the Malley skating rink can be followed live, according to the organizers. The web site lists the programme and live streaming will be available.
