Eddie

As heard on BBC Radio Four - Book of the Week . . . A memoir of love, death and jazz chickens, Eddie Izzard's fabulous Believe Me is his one and only autobiography . . .'I know why I'm doing all this,' I said. 'Everything I do in life is trying to get her back. I think if I do enough things . . . that maybe she'll come back.'When Eddie Izzard was six, he and his brother Mark lost their mother. That day, he lost his childhood too. Despite or perhaps because of this, he has always felt he needed to take on things that some people would consider impossible. In Believe Me, Eddie takes us on a journey which begins in Yemen (before the revolution), then takes us to Northern Ireland (before The Troubles), England and Wales, then across the seas to Europe and America. In a story jam-packed with incident he tells of teddy bear shows on boarding school beds, renouncing accountancy for swordfighting on the streets of London and making those first tentative steps towards becoming an Action Transvestite, touring France in French and playing the Hollywood Bowl. Above all, this is a tale about someone who has always done everything his own way (which often didn't work at first) and, sometimes almost by accident but always with grit and determination, achieving what he set out to do. Brimming with the surreal humour and disarming candor of his shows (with occasional digressions), Believe Me tells the story of a little boy who lost his mother yet who has risen to become a star of comedy and drama, a leading advocate of total clothing rights, a British European and extreme runner of marathons, who bestrides the world stage as a world stage bestrider. 'King of the Universe . . . Comic genius . . . Entertainment incarnate' Telegraph

"Don't get somewhere as fast as possible. Get somewhere as good as possible" Star of stage and screen. Tireless supporter of charity. Marathon runner. Political campaigner. Fashion icon. Human. There is no one quite like Eddie Izzard. This is the story of how he broke through. His relentless optimism has led him to always do things his own way, even if it didn't work first time, and his incredible self-belief has pushed him to keep on trying, even if it didn't work the second or third time either. Whether he was putting on teddy bear shows on boarding school beds or swordfighting on the streets of London, Eddie never stopped trying to achieve his dreams of becoming a performer. Brimming with his distinctively surreal humour and disarming candour, Believe Me tells the story of a boy who never took no for an answer.