Eddie Izzard: Dress to Kill is a British standup comedy special produced by Ella Communications Ltd. which was recorded during a performance at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, California as part of Izzard's global tour of the same name which covers topics such as animals, male tomboys, street theatre, sex, crime, God and cats who dig for oil.
The special was released on VHS and DVD in the United Kingdom on 9 November, 1998. It is 115 minutes long.
Eddie Izzard: Dress to Kill aired in South Africa on DStv's Comedy Central channel on Thursday 20 June 2013, at 20h55.
Synopsis
Dress To Kill, Izzard's fifth live show, marked his breakthrough in the USA and Canada. In February 1998, Izzard took the show to the Aspen Comedy Festival, where he won the Jury Award for "Best One-man Show", to Toronto and to the Westbeth Theatre Center in New York, where he played to packed houses for four months.
The shows were promoted by Robin Williams and were seen by celebrities such as Eric Idle, Steve Martin, George Harrison, Carrie Fisher, Madonna, Gabriel Byrne and Ellen Barkin.
It was during this tour that Izzard wrote the book, Dress To Kill with David Quantick, with photographs by Steve Double. The book was published by Virgin Books in hardback in 1998 and in paperback in 2000.
In Dress To Kill, Izzard reflects on his birth in Yemen and his childhood in Northern Ireland, Wales and London, and muses on animals, male tomboys, street theatre, sex, crime, God, movie classic The Great Escape, Bible stories starring Sean Connery and James Mason, and cats who dig for oil.
He also reflects on the trials and tribulations of being a cross-dressing surrealist comedian intent on making it in America.
Executive transvestite Izzard gives a brief history of pagan and Christian religions, the building of Stonehenge, the birth of the Church of England and of Western empires, and the need for a European dream.
Along the way, he dramatizes Dr. Heimlich's search for a maneuver, the naming of Engelbert Humperdinck, Scooby and Shaggy as archetypes, Neil Armstrong on the moon, society's tolerance of mass murderers, how we sing anthems and carols, Hollywood adapting British films, JFK's trip to Berlin, thoughts on puberty and how to work schoolbook-French phrases into Parisian conversation.