Thé et gâteau ou la mort!

[muckefuck]

I got a special surprise from the DVD of Eddie Izzard's Dress to Kill last week: Eddie in French! I guess when BBCAmerica broadcast the concert, they cut the French-language encore as something too recherché for US audiences. But that wasn't all! The disc also had an entire performance en français from his Parisian tour. His pronunciation isn't bad for an Englishman, and between his unharried diction and a general familiarity with the material, I found I could understand almost everything he said.

I've got to hand it for him for having the brass bollocks to perform in a language he's not completely fluent in. Several times, he would stop to ask his audience for grammatical correction and clarification. I knew how he must have felt. That is, I knew how I felt trying to hold the attention of listeners who hadn't paid cash money to hear me mangle their mother tongue and that was pressure enough. My respect for him is now deeper than ever. Vive la travestie executive!

Comments

[parisgreen.livejournal.com]

I love the French section on that DVD. For me it was essentially a French lesson; watching the routine in English first meant I could pick up a bit of French. And I also admire his guts.