Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Où est Greggs? - with Eddie Izzard

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

Jane and Fi soldier on through a printing nightmare. They cover everything from daytime TV to French oral exams, and still find time to discuss Greg Wallace twice. And, Eddie Izzard joins Jane and Fi to talk about her new one woman performance of Great Expectations.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail]: Kate Lee Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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We've got a little bit of a printing crisis going on, which Jane and I are not going to criticise, because neither of us are really in control of printing, are we? Well, and if you heard the final moments of the live show, you'll know that we, well, I, it's not V, it's me, I just don't understand 3D printing. It doesn't matter how many times people attempt to explain it to me. And the notion of 3D printing food,

I'm just, I'm sorry, I'm baffled. But your point was we shouldn't call it a printer. If we didn't call it a printer, perhaps I'd find it easier to understand. That might be true. Yeah, so I think it's just the notion that you create something in 3D on your computer and then you plug it into a machine that enables that to happen. Because you can't possibly be printing an A47 gun on the same printer as a three-layered cheesecake.

And Henry Bird was talking about printing a cheesecake. Well, he was. And I know that you can print guns, maybe not an A47, but you can print a gun. But that wouldn't be the same machine. So it's just a machine. That's what it is. Yes. But that wouldn't be the same machine. So it's just a machine. That's what it is. Yes, but if you are going to use a machine to make a cheesecake,

the ingredients for the cheesecake must be somewhere in that machine. Yes, you must have to add them. But that's what I mean. So it's just a big industrial machine into which you put some biscuit, some melted butter, cheese flavorings some eggs off you go where's greg wallace when you really need him well he's wearing a hairnet without any hair it's never not funny sorry i haven't thought about that that is true he does he's a very keen wearer of the hairnet but please don't write in and say you mustn't laugh at bald men. We're not.

Because actually, I just, I even wrote about it in our book, didn't I? My sympathy for bald men knows no bounds. Anyway, our printing dilemma is that the very lovely Keir, who's incredibly competent at absolutely everything, but has printed out all of our emails in a kind of screenshot. So we haven't got the right hand side but if we carry on reading them without some of the words that go onto the right hand side they're quite funny this one from Caroline says hello Fee and Jane I'm a 58 and a half year old mum of two boys now in their late

20s we used to have the jelly in a mold pudding regularly under its tail good old granny she knew how to get them to eat so um i dare say that was probably made a great deal of sense if the entire email had been included but we're left wondering about granny um i think it's fair to say okay um let's plow on um this is from therese williams who is in canada um good afternoon she says from the west coast of canada um loved your assessments of the goings-on re B. Johnson. How is it there are so many incompetent people running countries reproducing? Again, bits are missing, but strangely appropriate.

So thank you for that. I actually was listening to all the assessments of B. Johnson's evidence at our Privileges Committee yesterday, this morning, on all the radio stations and in all the papers. And quite a few people did pick up on that. He's just quite aggressive. And the idea of him as a charming, funny man was always, if I'm honest, completely lost on me. I've never been a fan of his. I've never, ever been tempted to fall for his thing.

And I thought yesterday he just revealed himself to be quite an unpleasant person. He was at a high simmer from the moment it started, wasn't he? There was an air of menace. Yeah, I think there was. I don't think that's exaggerating. And I know people are saying, oh, he's... Some people say, oh, that's it now, he's finished.

And it does seem as though his support is ebbing away, but he still has people speaking up for him and people who truly do believe he's the only person who can get us on, get us out of the mire in which we find ourselves. It's very odd, isn't it? It is. The other odd thing that I only read about this week was the enormous amount of money that he's been paid for his speaking engagements.

That's based on future speaking engagements. That's not stuff he's actually done. Done, yeah. So he still has to delight those audiences. And I wonder whether those audiences will want him as much. I do think that he will always find an audience. There are always going to be people who are prepared to listen to what he's got to say, I think. But we might find, you're right, it's a really good point.

Is he still worth that dollar? Yeah. Well, he's got it now, so it doesn't make any difference. Presumably in the small print, he was never going to have to pay it back. Well, we'll see. If you get a sudden flurry of calls to go and talk to the international insurance oh look at that god good lord this is like a sight test hang on that we've been handed some emails that really that is the bottom line of a sight test and i haven't been able to read that for about 25 years. Let's see. Well, I've got my new varifocals.

Anyway, I was just saying, if you get a sudden rush on to go and do some after-dinner speaking, you'll know who you're replacing. And I'm quite happy. I could come along and be a Boris Johnson fluffer because we were told that fantastic story, weren't we, by a colleague of ours at the BBC Radio 2 who had introduced him at a big awards ceremony

and Boris Johnson had turned up perfectly kempt, if that is the opposite of unkempt, but had stood in the green room, deliberately muzzled up his hair and pulled his shirt out and made his tie squiffy and then bumbled on to be Boris. He'd turned himself into Bozza. So I could come and do that for you. I could come and ruffle your hair.

The hair sort of ruffles itself, to be honest. Anyway, right. Have you got one you can read? Well, I have, but just, you know, forgive me if this takes a little bit of time, because seriously, this is a tiny, tiny font. Prostates, Boris and Random Glitter is the title from Katrina. Some may have had the opposite opinion, but I admired Tony Robinson's

frank and practical description of prostate symptoms and testing. Now, Tony was our guest on the programme yesterday. He is in remission from prostate cancer, and he did tell us everything we needed to know about what happens in a prostate examination. Katrina goes on to say its main relevance to an audience of, I presume, largely women is that they're often still the ones prompting men to actually go to the doctor. So better awareness of why their partner is suddenly stumbling to the bathroom several times a night could therefore be life-saving. However, I'm mainly writing to challenge what Jane probably thought was her least controversial comment of the week. A smear test is no woman's idea of a good time. in the normal scheme of things

this is undoubtedly true but this instantly took me back to unprecedented times and the hugely successful lockdown parenting facebook group deep into lockdown one woman posted i've been homeschooling furloughed and barely leaving the house since the origin of the mayan calendar having not socialized for quite a while can anyone tell me what would be considered too dressy to wear to a smear test oh I do love that and I can genuinely say there was a moment when uh I had both kids at home with me I was on maternity leave with my baby daughter and I had a two and a half year old boy and as anybody who's experienced that knows it's just quite full-on you just you're very tired because I was still breastfeeding at night and then you have to do lots of stuff during the day obviously and I got called to go for my

spear test and honest to god Jane. Were you really excited? It was yeah it was one of the nicest, calmest, loveliest 20 minutes of that whole period. Because somebody was being very nice to me. Would you like to lie down here? Would you like to do this? Someone was just telling me what to do. The kids were being looked after in reception, actually, by, you know, presumably someone far better qualified than me. And I just had a little lie down for 20 minutes. And the speculum didn't bother you because it was just a break.

It was a mini break. Very nice. Okay. Kate, can I ask you to, you see on the screen there, you've got the email from Lauren. It's called Finger Up the Balm. I think I can read it on the screen. This is a great test of our eyesight, isn't it?

Well, I've got my new Varifocus from Specsavers. Or Specsavers, you can pronounce it however you like. But, you know, two for the price of and all the rest of it. This is really interesting. Lauren just says, I'm really glad that you let Tony Robinson talk about prostate cancer on the podcast yesterday. Sadly,

I know more than I should about this disease. My husband, the former England cricket captain, Bob Willis, was diagnosed in the April of 2016 and he died in December 2019. He was just 70. Now together with his daughter and brother we've set up the Bob Willis Fund in his memory and we've raised more than £800,000 for research into earlier and better diagnosis. Now there is evidence to suggest that the digital rectal examination or the finger up the bum doesn't really help the diagnosis.

And in my opinion, not at all expert, she says, it would be better if it wasn't used in the initial process, as the thought of it does seem to stop men getting tested. In Bob's case, two doctors had given him the finger and they both said it felt fine. But his cancer had actually already spread to his bones by this time. I believe you can ask your doctor for a psa that's a blood test if you don't want the dre but the psa is also flawed it didn't suggest bob had a problem despite the severity of his stage four cancer so it's vital that money is raised to find a new test that could lead to a national screaming screening program

tony is right that very few people even know what a prostate is, and they still often say prostrate. So, Lauren, that's really interesting, and thank you. And I note that you say you've spoken twice to my ex-husband on Five Live, and he was very supportive. He said his prostate was throbbing by the end of the conversation. Thank you, Lauren. But I really do i really

do hugely admire the work that your charity is doing and everybody will remember bob willis fantastic cricketer and um he did um he did die very young i mean 70 is no age these days and i'm sorry that he just didn't get the right diagnosis quickly enough uh here here uh you've got a little bit of spinach in between i know I'm aware of it are you? yeah I am I can sense it flapping we've got to the stage in our friendship where I think the audience need to know things like that I'm going out to empower some young women

so I will go to the loo before I go okay I think you should Sue East sends us this hello Jane and Fee an answer to your question today about what would make an interesting and refreshing change on TV, away from the endless repetitive crime, cookery, property, prancing around on ice in the jungle, etc., I would love to see something more useful, such as tips and techniques on how to sew and knit garments.

A generation or so back, these skills were picked up from your mum, granny's, aunt's, etc., in the home, not to mention that the school curriculum in days gone by included these. No time these days and with women taking their place increasingly in the workplace and the school curriculum crammed with so much other stuff it would be a huge benefit if such a subject could be introduced as if the audience were not complete idiots and irritatingly dumbed down as is the case in so much tv content these days uh greg what a style sue says in brackets that's two mentions for greg two more than he needs uh so i really agree with you sue and especially that point about um those kind of

crafts which is what they are are i think, really relegated to the backwaters of daytime TV programmes, if they're shown at all. I think Grayson Perry has celebrated them, to be fair. No, but not in a... But that's more from a kind of

art perspective, isn't it? It's not actually from a completely, let's start at the beginning and show you how to do it. And then you've got the sewing bee thingamajig. But that's at such an advanced stage. And also they just make daft things. They really do.

There's always somebody's doing something clever with some gold brocade chiffon and could you make it into a bathing costume in the style of the 1930s or something it's not actually let's make clothes and i think you could do something brilliant at the moment with that recycled circular economy of clothing yeah because you're buying so much stuff on generation and deep yeah deep up and then you're changing it at home

or you want to change it at home, all that kind of stuff. I think that would be really good. And you can do those things with clever people. You don't have to dumb them down. So that's a nice suggestion, Sue. And this is an interesting email from Adam, who's struggling with his partner. I think I'm going to call her current partner, Adam,

because I think maybe Adam can do better. Adam has been a listener for a while and he's been urging his wife to get involved but she's not really that interested. He did make her listen to the interview with Stella O'Malley earlier in the week. What do you think of Fee and Jane I asked eagerly and you can't imagine my horror when she replied but I enjoyed the interview but I can't be doing with all that nonsense before and after where they just chat and read out emails I never realized until now the finality in the expression I can't be doing and I'm utterly crestfallen but I've had to concede that we will never fully share in the delights of your podcast I wonder how many other listeners are flying solo with your pod

in otherwise happy partnerships oh so he's sticking with the partner. For the time being. Yes, well, I think it's good to have solo pursuits. It certainly is. I wonder how many people listen to us jabbering on in the company of anybody else. I mean, the huge, huge success of podcasts points to the fact that people quite like

a solo audio experience, don't they? Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely right. And people, the overwhelming majority of people listen to podcasts with their earbuds in rather than like a radio programme. Yeah. Right, I'm swapping my car tomorrow and I'm told I'm going to have a surround sound system. Oh, Jay. I know. It'll never be the same again.

I don't think so. I think I might just a surround sound system. Oh, Jay. I know. It'll never be the same again. I don't think so. I think I might just stay in the car. I might start commuting to work. I'll have to leave the night before, but I'll make every effort to do exactly that and get here before three, Monday to Thursday. By surround sound, do they just mean you've got a speaker in the back?

Listen, it's said on the blurb, surround sound. Don't reduce it to a speaker in the back. Okay. on the blurb surround sound don't reduce it to a speaker in the back okay i've got a very very complicated it's the only thing that is complicated on my skoda dashboard uh but it's is there a steering wheel yes there is yeah but it's lovely and simple well i like it but but then the audio stuff because you can plug your phone in and 17 different things come up all at once. And I try very hard to never change anything while I'm driving. So I'm a bit paranoid about that.

But boy, I've listened to some crap because of that. What was the crappest thing you listened to? So I did get stuck on a loop. I'm not going to name the podcast because that would be incredibly mean of me to do so. But I was driving on quite a long drive on the motorway to go and see my mum and I got stuck on a podcast that just went onto the next episode every time and honest to god I can't change that while I'm driving because it just seems to involve too much pressing on screens and also it's not really safe is it no I don't see how it can't yeah it can't be safe it really can't be safe um I've been thinking about um programs I was trying to come up with some

documentaries that have yet to be made or should be made and actually the thing I just I was thinking in the middle of the night last night when was the last time you saw a really good travel show about Germany and honestly there hasn't been one has there as far as I know and Germany used to be, as I understand it

a tourist, people did go it was a tourist place, you went to Germany particularly on walking holidays and then understand it a tourist people did go it was a tourist place you went to germany particularly on walking holidays and then it's all the two world wars seem to have put an end to us being tourists in germany i know people visit berlin now but on the whole it still isn't a tourist destination and it's a beautiful country huge country as well um and i'd actually like to know more about it well there, there you go. Yeah, but you just... Garvey goes to Germany.

Well, someone's going to bloody Italy every five minutes. That's very true. I can't understand why there aren't more travel shows, not necessarily fronted by celebrity people, but just actually just in that old-fashioned way of holiday, where people just go and... I used to love holiday. They just go on holiday.

Do you remember when Gillian Reynolds used to go off in a car? She was one of the people who used to report. I don't remember her. Yeah. Frank Boff and his wife, Nesta. I do remember Frank Boff, and I think... Would you have remembered his wife's name? No, I probably wouldn't have, actually.

My sister and I used to find the name Nesta Boff extremely amusing. Just Boff. It's quite funny. Well, Boff is the surname of my younger daughter's rag doll, so we're not allowed to... Sorry, your doll had a surname? My younger daughter's rag doll? So we're not allowed to know. Sorry, your doll had a surname? My younger daughter's rag doll has a surname. Oh, that's very formal.

But do you remember when Judith Chalmers at the end, she would always leave the viewer with a beautiful sunset, Judith sitting in front of it, cheers. She'd always say, cheers. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. And then would come the music. But I would happily, 8 o'clock of an evening see a, just not

jam-packed Michael Palin goes to North Korea and all that kind of stuff people go on holiday in an old-fashioned way that'd be nice it would be nice Sam wants to contribute their idea of a weeknight documentary special I think it would be really fascinating to see what happened if a woman was professionally made up to appear male.

I'm not sure how a voice could be changed, but I guess there are professionals who could coach it, and then spend a day doing typical things whilst rigged up with cameras and microphones. I imagine they could go into a bank to maybe ask about a loan, visit a car dealership, or call into a pub for a drink alone, etc. They then repeat the same day, but this time as their female selves. It would be lovely to think that there'd be no

difference, and the whole exercise wouldn't be worth broadcasting, but I suspect there'd be an alarming number of differences, both in what the viewer would observe through the hidden cameras, and in what the woman herself felt in the different circumstances, depending on her outward appearance. Well, somebody at The Times did exactly that. Did they? A couple of weeks ago for an article. I'll dig it out and inform you of it next time we meet. OK, that's from Sam. So thank you for that, Sam.

We will... P is very good about these things. She will dig it out. I'll do it because I'm going to put it on my hand. Can I just say that I've forgotten, and I did have it on my hand for about a week, to just say hello to Helen Rumbelow, who is our colleague on The Times, and she listens to this podcast,

and I really love everything she writes about. We bumped into each other in the canteen, spent a happy five minutes fangirling each other. Helen, you're lovely. Oh, my gosh. No, she's very fond of you. Hi, Helen. John Ronson also did that thing where he dressed up as a woman

once a long time ago and i remember thinking it was slightly outrageous thing to do it was about 20 years ago and he did yep he did a whole series about that and he is he is quite a short chap isn't he he's not huge no i mean i'm a short woman so i don't see i don't i just couldn't i don't think i could pass as a as a man no i don't think you could either no um anyway i suppose this is probably a good time to bring in suzy suzy izzard yeah nice link well it's your second of the day i know and you praised me on air as well um i mean i made a lot of cock ups as well today but i did get that one thing right and thank you for mentioning it. I will sail into the weekend high on life because of that. So our guest today was Eddie Izzard, comedian and actor and also now

called Susie Izzard and we do talk about that right at the beginning of the interview so don't think that we're ignoring the elephant in the room. Eddie is dyslexic and had never read a great work of literature, but decided to start with Great Expectations and was so inspired by it that she decided to develop it as a one-woman show. And you can see that starting in May at the Garrick in this here London town in a six-week run. You'll also know Eddie as a comedian, a multi-marathon runner. He once did 31 marathons and 31 stand-up gigs across 31 days in 2021. He's also a writer, a would-be politician. He has stood for selection for the Labour Party but not made it and he's also an actor. But we began by asking her to explain the pronouns and her new name, Susie.

I added the name Susie in, and since I was 10, I thought, yeah, I'd quite like to be called Susie. And because my name in my passport was Edward John, and if you stay in a hotel, they phone up and they say, now, Edward, what are you doing? You know, that kind of thing. So I thought, I'll put Susie at the front there. So I've added that in. So instead of Edward John, it's going to be Susie Eddie

when I do all the paperwork. But people could choose. So I prefer Eddie, no, I be Susie, Eddie when I do all the paperwork but people can choose so I prefer Susie don't mind Eddie, prefer she, her don't mind he, him, no one can make a mistake unless you call me Arthur or Sabrina okay, right, make a note I have absolutely no Arthur

no Sabrina here, do you genuinely not mind though? I did come up with Eddie because I was Edward Edward was a bit edward will you please just be boring in the corner and so eddie seemed much more kind of i don't know lucy you know out there doing things lucy i was gonna say lucy lucy i just i got it from a pepsi ad for it actually hey eddie how come you're such a hit with the girls and because i wanted to be a hit with the girls but i was never really a hit with the girls um uh because i fancy girls and uh that

didn't happen but i like the name eddie and i took that spell well the spelling i made up because in france it's often with a y but so i do want you know i'm gender fluid i've been out for 38 years since 1985 and next year's gonna be 39 and, and then there's going to be a celebration. Anyway, I've been out for a long time, and so, yeah, I'm staying gender fluid. Public name's going to stay Eddie Izzard, but I think I had Susie in, and some friends said, oh, I'll call you Susie. So some people in the streets are already calling me Susie.

So if they want to stay with Eddie, some people go he, some people go she. No big problem. No one can make a mistake. That's, I think, a nice balm for the current situation. An excellent start, yes. Do you understand people who do get offended when the wrong pronoun is used? Yes, I do.

This is just my personal thing. I'm not saying everyone has to do that. That's just how I'm approaching this subject because, you know, when I came out in 1985, all the heated discussions happening now there were no discussions zippity-doo-dah on the discussion front we were considered non-people toxic people outside of society i knew that my job was for myself and for anyone else was to try and bring us into society just try and be a citizen pay taxes do your thing have a career that was

what i was trying to do and some people uh and obviously some in the changing of pronouns it's kind of created a little hurdle it's a little adjustment young people seem to be fine with it they just swing with it they them they don't seem to mind older generations are having you know tricky time with it my brother's staying with eddie my director selena cadel she's staying with eddie um so it's all cool for my phone but i do understand it can get heated yeah we'll come back to talking a little bit more about that we've got a decent half an hour to talk about other stuff too and we definitely need to talk about great expectations it seems extraordinary that if the words on the page have always been difficult which is just how it is if you have

dyslexia you would dive into great expectations and go, this is the thing for me. Was that really the first kind of big piece of literature you tackled? Yes. I mean, at school, Thomas Hardy, the mayor of Casterbridge, remember, and now Izzard Reid, you know, read two pages of that, and now Stevens, you know, Judith Llewellyn. That's a real person who was there. But you know i had i had difficulty with that but it is i'm exactly 150 years younger than dickens

you share a birthday don't you yes 7th february 1812 7th february 1962 hit my glass there what does that mean 150 years exactly nothing but if it was 100 years you'd go whoa but there's no it's just sort of it was 147 you go but 150 is kind of halfway between just use it use it yeah exactly so i've decided to run with it i thought this is kind of a you know i did do accounting and financial management at university i do you know i've got straight a's in math and my brain said to me you know if audiobooks are on the rise which you may know people are listening more and more to audio phones and stuff. Why don't I see if there's anyone out there who would who would pay me, commission me to read an audiobook?

And I wanted to be Dickens. And that was the offer that went out. And an offer came back of saying, yes, and we'd like you to do Great Expectations. They chose that. They said it's a it's often on the curriculum. It's a more mature book. And I said, fine, excellent, let's go for it. And so the audiobook is out there over 20 hours in all its majesty. And it was quite difficult. Three weeks in a recording studio trying to pull the words out of my mouth. It was almost like I was a puppeteer with my fingers trying.

Because sometimes I just can't get them off the page and straight out of my mouth. If I'm just saying them, I can. But if it's from the printed page and out of my mouth, it's trickier. Anyway, that was done, that was a few years ago, four years ago, maybe five years ago, and I thought because in stand-up I play multiple characters, a technique I got from Richard Pryor, the great American stand-up, maybe I could use that technique to do drama, as in Great Expectations,

which I have done, I was previewing it, took it to America, New York, and it got rave reviews, the kind of reviews I've been trying to get all my life for drama. You know, Performers of the Year, Eddie's Odd Command is a classic, Prepare to be Transfixed. I mean, I was going, really? Because you're not supposed to read your reviews, but I decided to read them and go, wow, they're too good.

So I've got 44 quotes that I can pull out. Normally you get one, two, maybe five quotes, but I've got 44. I can just keep changing them over. I've got 44 and that I can pull out. Normally you get one, two, maybe five quotes, but I've got 44. I can just keep changing them over. I've got 44 and I'm going to use them. Yeah, I know. I thought of putting them in one social media thing, but it actually looked too much. It looked wrong.

It looked like, you know... So you're on the stage on your own. On my own, playing 19 characters. I turned... So I'm going from Magwitch being the villain of the piece, who's seemingly the villain of the piece, and then young Pip. So younger Pip, and it's much more of a rural accent,

and then he becomes much more of a London person. His accent changes. Estella, the very beautiful ice queen young girl who grows up into a young woman who's breaking Pip's heart. Miss Havisham was jilted at the altar. All those characters, and trying to pull them apart and define them more and more precisely. And we did it for six weeks in New York,

and it extended for an extra three weeks before we even started. So I thought, OK, this is great now. It's in a really good position. Nine weeks of testing and adding bits, taking out certain bits. And so 24th of May at the Garrick Theatre. EddieIzzard.com for tickets, I should say that. And it's just in a beautiful place. And people seem to be really moved by it.

Is every night the same? Yeah. I mean, you can hold all of that and just deliver it. 15,000 words, yeah, every night. I do sometimes change things. Like, I realised that in our adaptation, which my older brother did, I was going to do it with my older brother,

who's a writer, and then he just went ahead and did it, but I realised there was no distinct time when Estella first meets Pip at the gate at Miss Havisham's house with Uncle Pumblechook. There was no point when we see Pip reacting to the look of Estella. So I've added that in, which is actually kind of soundless. You just see him breathless at this young beauty.

And then she's kind of, oh, he doesn't say anything. And then she just wanders off and drags him in and it terrorizes him for the rest of his life kind of thing. But I've just added certain bits, and between Selina Cadell, my director, and my brother Marques, the adapter, they can take things out. They say, no, you can't do that.

Yes, we can do that. We allow that, you know. So if all three of us agree, then it stays in, and if two of them are against me, I'll take it out and trust on them. I've seen you do your stand-up a couple of times, including one extraordinary time. I mean, it was years ago, Eddie.

I'm much, much older than I look. As I am as well. Say something there. Sorry. No, you did... I was reflecting back on me and saying, well, I think I'm pretty old. You did the first half of your stand-up routine in English english you did the second half in french and german it was just extraordinary

but i you know you have such a stream of consciousness about you when you're on stage i suppose that's why um i'm intrigued to know whether you feel the constraints of a one-person show where you do have to stick to a script that you've written way back when before you first started no this has been put to me before as in films as well because in films i will stick to the script if but i don't mind because i'm trying to do different things i'm trying to particularly in a drama if it's comedy that i can go exactly where i want to but if even actually if i was doing a written comedy written by someone else I would try to play the main tracks of wherever we are going emotionally but I suppose I would have more license in comedy to say hey why don't I add this but I'd keep it

within character because that's something you can do uh say in comedies you can break character and get a and get a laugh on something by while you're breaking character but that's a bad thing to do because you should stay honourable to the characters and what the characters might do in that situation. But in the drama, I'm happy to stay with it. Even if it was word for word to stay with it, I'm still happy because I wanted to be an actor when I was seven.

I wanted to be a comedian when I was about 12, 13, 14. That was the second thing that came into my head. The first thing was I just want to be an actor. Voice over describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. Voice over on settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books, contacts, calendar, double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11.

And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. We are talking to Susie Eddie. Eddie Izzard this afternoon. Welcome. If you've only just joined us, Susie Eddie is halfway through. Not your life story.

I should say that I'm not Susie Eddie Izzard. That's like you're reading off my passport. I do apologize. It's going to be Susie Izzard or Eddie Izzard. You've got to choose one. I'm not going to choose. We called you Eddie and Susie, haven't we, so far? Yes, but I don't want to be Anne-Marie. I'm not this sort of high-fived thing. Let's go Susie.

You seem to be making a determined effort to take the toxicity out of the debate around. Absolutely, yes. So why do you think it got as toxic as it did well think about uh marriage equality you know 10 years ago 15 years ago how toxic did that get if you have men marry men and women marry women then this is gonna happen and that went all off into that the right wing they it's the right wing they kind of stir things up oh actually it's not necessarily all the right wing. Just some people...

If things change, then some people say, no, we've got to hold back to where it is. And sometimes for different reasons. I think the right wing is from, surely the 1950s, surely the 1930s was the... And we're going, no, you've got to head forward to the 2030s. But I have been out 38 years. So we weren't being talked about at all.

And now we are being talked about or discussed what's the right way to to do things and it's very difficult to get exact answers that uh that work so some people get very heated i don't get very heated i just sail on you know i've been out this long time i know this is true i mean in a world of boris johnson lying and lying and lying and then taking an oath on a bible from 400 years ago to say, this time, he should have leant into that, shouldn't he have been able to say, this time I'm going to tell the truth. I know I have lied over 70 billion times, but this time.

Can we just talk a little bit about Scotland and about the gender recognition there and the genuine trouble it has caused the SNP with losing thousands of members? Do you think it's all over that? Well, I mean, it has to be a factor. It has to be a factor, Susie. It just has to be.

Well, this is the problem we have here. It's a two-year. Some people are trans. They want to adjust the way their gender is written down in governmental form. And it's two years at the moment. And the SNP, I believe, were bringing it in. It was going to be three months. You had to avow three months,

and then you had to do another three months waiting. That's a total of six months. And they said that you could do it at 16, which, I mean, does to a lot of people seem... Well, OK, well, look at it this way. Some people are saying if you transition, they want to re-transition, and you've had a surgical operation,

what do you do then? But then if you do want to transition and you're not allowed to transition, then people could be self-harming and even killing themselves. So how do you balance those two together? And the answer, I think, is there is no perfect balance, but we are trying to find it. I think they were trying to find... They felt that that was a way to go.

So I don't think that the fact that, you know, I'm not going to put down all their losses of members is down to that, but the point is, if you're heading forward into a fairer future for trans people, it's going to be a little tricky. Yeah. So Keir Starmer, and I know that you have an interest in joining the Labour Party. You've wanted to stand as...

No, I've been in the Labour Party since 1995. You want to stand as their MP. Yeah. He said today that the party needs to reflect on what happened in Scotland with the GRA. And the lesson that he takes from all of that is that if you're going to make reforms, you have to carry the public with you.

Yeah. So how do you think he does that? Well, the way I've been trying to take the public with me is I move at the speed of a glacier, but also the momentum of a glacier. But I do get there and I do take things forward and I do adjust things, like I've been out this long and I've just added in Susie.

So I'm not saying that's the speed you need to go up but it's you have to take a sense of things and then sometimes you have to move forward like ireland said we're going to ban uh smoking remember that for health and we remember that feeling it means what you're going to just ban it and then oh everyone jumped in and suddenly everyone's doing i think well it's way better for health isn't it so um the people arguing against smoking, it was a different thing. I don't know if they just wanted the freedom to be able to smoke anywhere they wanted to, but it is a tricky question. When gay rights and lesbian rights,

those arguments were also very heated. Yes, bring the public with you, but, you know, I'm not a member of the SNP but maybe they lost a third of them but they still had two thirds of the people still voting for them That's not a very good argument So when you stood for selection as the Labour MP for Sheffield

I know that you said during that campaign you had a torrent of really horrendous transphobic Not on the streets The streets of the people of people's chef were wonderful. I had met two people who were kind of transphobic to my face. That's it, two people out of all the people I door-knocked and met and whatever. Right, so the rest of it was on the socials.

Yeah, it was socials, which, I mean, and online, you know what people can do when they're behind a firewall. They can come up with the most horrendous stuff. And so I just didn't read that what does it make you feel though knowing that that's out there and i think it's just it's very important to hear from people and as you've said you know people who have lived their lives with this force of whatever it is aggression fear distaste whatever it is against them, is important for us to all hear what it does to your life when you have to receive that.

I think it would be hugely intimidating. I mean, I must admit, when people say horrible things online, I don't read them. So that's my technique. That's my tip, top tips. When I get it in the street, I give it back to them. I will stand my ground. I mean, the first day I came out and went on public transport back in early 85, I got some bullying going on, but in the end I turned around and said, right, do you want me to tell you what I'm all about? And then they ran off

into the distance. So it's not a perfect thing, but I will stand my ground. It is hellish if people are shouting abuse at you. And I have literally had 20 minutes of them shouting abuse and I shout abuse back. It's not a great thing to be around, but I just won't. I won't back down. I will stand my ground. Not everyone's made like me. I'm just some sort of strange, tough little git who runs multiple marathons and is very determined. So I'm sure sure for other people it is much tougher for them

uh i'm sure some of the people who are being really transphobic they there might be a thought behind that whether you know certain people are saying what happens if someone transitions wants to re-transition they don't have a perfect answer for that but what if they do want to transition and they can't transition this is the point where we're a little bit stuck at but the idea that trans people do exist, at least that's out there. I know some transphobic people say they shouldn't exist or don't exist, but we do. We're here. I've been here forever.

If you think about it, since the dawn of time, LGBTQ people... No right-minded person is saying that trans people don't exist, but you'll understand this. Well, they shouldn't. Some people, though, are concerned about safe spaces for women and i think a lot of people listening right now will feel that those concerns are

entirely legitimate well i'm i'm not the i'm not going to be the trans poster person i just don't have all the answers for everything um um so but i don't think I've been through 38 years of dealing with people, physically fighting me in the street, hurling abuse at me, and then I'm going to go to the loo and fight someone who is a woman. No, I don't think you are either. But that is levelled at. Well, that clearly is absurd and it shouldn't be levelled at anybody. But there is no doubt.

I mean, I think I'm absolutely certain I've been in a loo with a trans woman. Did it impact me one iota? No, it didn't be levelled at anybody. But there is no doubt. I mean, I think I'm absolutely certain I've been in a loo with a trans woman. Did it impact me one iota? No, it didn't. But that isn't quite the same thing as women-only prisons, for example, is it? No, honestly, I'm not coming to politics to say I have all the answers for how we should take the trans situation forward.

I don't have all those answers. So if you ask me to sort it all out right now, I can't. Do you think, you know, you're such a performer and you're so brilliant. Do you actually honestly want to be a backbench MP? Why do I have to be a backbench MP? Well, OK. Do you want to be the Home Secretary, Susie?

What, does it have to be the Home Secretary? Oh, do you want to be the Prime Minister? What is your preferred position? No, this is, I, you need to be the Home Secretary, Susie? Does it have to be the Home Secretary? Oh, do you want to be the Prime Minister? What is your preferred position? You need to be able to do three things that I've analysed. If you want to be a politician, you need to be able to communicate, I think I can do that. You need to articulate clearly exactly what you're feeling. And here you're doing very good questions

and I'm trying to articulate that exactly how I feel without saying something that's falling into another area. You need to have a vision for the future. And I think a lot of people in politics maybe don't have articulate vision. One sentence of my vision is everyone in the world has the right to a fair chance in life. That's everyone in the constituency that I will represent, everyone in the country, everyone in the continent, and everyone in the world. We all have that right.

The 21st century is the coming of age of humanity. We have to get it right this century. We've got 80 years, I feel, to make humanity fair. The other thing we have to do is be able to analyze systems and say what isn't working in the system and what is working. Keep the bits that are working and change the bits that aren't. Those three things, I think, are what are needed, and I can do that. And I was thinking to myself back in 2008,

do I want to go through this in my entire life? And I think you get one life each. I don't know if there's any other lives that come back and you come back as something else. But I know I've got this life, and do I want to go through it and not lend my skills to try and make it better for as many people as possible, try and make it a fair world, as good as I can? And I thought, no, I do want to go in and do that.

And Glenda Jackson did the same, and Alice Farson did the same. So you've got a minute, and that's only because we've only got a minute of the programme left. What is the first thing that you'd change if we waved a magic wand to the Prime Minister of the country? No, I can't do that. What would be the defining... You would come in as a backbench MP.

No, for sure. But what's the one thing that you look at which really frustrates you, where you just think, I would change that? Well, I'm trying to head forward that everyone has a fair chance. Everyone makes connections rather than break connections. We must be brave and curious, not fearful and suspicious.

And the right wing constantly encourages people to be fearful and suspicious. And they are the people to fear. It is the right wing that you need to fear. So I cannot say specifically on day one, I'm going to put that in because I won't have the power to do that. But I do want to try and move in the anti-country

and our continent and our world towards a fairer existence. Did you get lots of blisters when you were running your marathons? When I went around the UK, I got multiple blisters. And when I went around the UK I got multiple blisters and when I went around South Africa, 27 marathons, 27 days I got one blister because you have to wear a pair of shoes that is a size bigger than you normally wear

because your feet will expand because the blood goes into it and that's why people should buy tickets for Great Expectations at eddieazard.com on sale right now Eddie Azard and as you heard Eddie say at the beginning of our interview, you can also call Eddie Susie,

and he doesn't mind if you use the pronoun she. She would rather she, but she's not going to get herself into a pickle if you say he as well. And I think there's so much noise, as you said in the interview, there is so much noise as you said in the interview there is so much hard harsh volume about the

trans community at the moment and I did think it was really good to hear from somebody who has quite a long perspective on their identity and also who just says I'm not bothered I understand that other just says, I'm not bothered, I understand that other people are.

Get confused. But I'm not bothered because I think people are so fearful, and I was before we did the interview, of getting something wrong that would offend someone who I don't want to offend. But it would just have been my ignorance, or it is, I think for many people, still a slip of the tongue. And you don't want to then be judged as some kind of transphobic

person because you've got something wrong that we are maybe all just at the beginning of our journey of knowledge i think we are i think it's sometimes um it is the fear of getting it wrong of just causing offense when it's the last thing you want to do but But I do also think that I'm also like you. We are both really determined not to be dragged into this horrible culture war, biff, baff, bosh type conversation around these issues because it helps absolutely nobody. And actually, it was interesting that we had that conversation today when Zakir Starmer has spoken really quite passionately about Labour's commitment to trying to do something about violence against women and girls. You know, the plain fact is that trans women do not pose a threat to women and girls. You know, let's be honest, statistically, it's a minute threat if there is a threat.

The real threat is from male violence, the same threat, actually, that trans women are up against, the same threat that most men are also up against. That's where we should actually join together to do something about this, not just descend into utterly destructive bickering. It's so pointless. Yeah, and to which there is no right or wrong answer that suits everybody's life. And that's always the problem with any type of legislation. You know, you have to legislate

for the weakest people in society in order to protect them. But if you start having an argument about who for the weakest people in society in order to protect them. But if you start having an argument about who is the weakest person in society, you're going to find it very hard to make the right kind of legislation. There will be somebody who feels it's not for them. But that's where we are. It is unhelpful to try and be certain about everything when you don't feel you can ask any of the questions.

Much less seriously, I can't forgive her for the fact that her pink berry obscured my view of glenda jackson's king leah it was it was some years ago now and there was a media performance of leah i think it was just called leah do you remember when glenda did it no i'm sorry i don't well i mean i absolutely if i could interview anybody again, it would be Glenda Jackson. And she was, you know, it's a long old watch. But I can say I saw it and I'll always be terrifically glad that I was there. And Eddie Izzard, Susie Izzard's pink beret was right in front of me. I'm so sorry.

Yeah, well, if I'd had more time, I'd have mentioned it. Now, news has absolutely sprung in from Quebec. Yes. From Francis, who says, I just wanted to let you know that your new theme tune is the same as a French-Canadian show. Oh, I saw this. De Cote Chez Catherine.

Oui. This created a brief moment of confusion when I first heard it last night, and being half asleep, thought for a second that there was somehow a transcontinental crossover between the two shows this is rather hurtful something unlikely to ever happen judging by jane's proficiency in french well i'm trying to think of something french to say cal de marge cal de marge je suis désolé um so um right, Frances, well, thank you. I wish, can you translate what it says about this show?

She's a very lovely lady, this Catherine. I'll have a look. Just a bit of simultaneous translation here. Thea, I should say, also acts as my tax and financial advisor, and she did some brilliant work on the programme today, pulling apart Zakir Starmer's tax return, which she's made public. I will float home with a compliment from Garth. I can't do that. programme today, pulling apart Zakia Starmer's tax return, which she's made public. I will float home with a compliment from Garth.

I can't do that. Catherine Perrin has plunged herself into the society of springtime. No, I can't do this. This is like a terrible, terrible anxiety dream ahead of my GCSE. Let's suffice to say that this lady in Quebec is having a tumultuous time

and she uses the same theme music as us. She does. So it just remains, I do apologise for not being able to do that, it just remains for us to say au revoir from la cote de Jane and Fee.

What does that mean? A bientôt. It just says goodbye from the coast of Jane and Fee because she's the coast of Catherine. Oh, well, why don't you say the coast of the River Thames because we can just see it out there. Yeah, well, you do that.

I can't. Okay. I can't. Well, shall we sing Sous la Pont-d'Avignon? Oh, yes. L'Honneur des Dents. What is it? Anyway, do you remember the oral exams you did for French and German

where you just had to learn? I wrote the answers to 100 questions. Où est le douan? Yeah, what was that all about? Yeah, I've never understood that because when you go through an airport or any kind of port, the biggest sign is customs. You're never, ever in your life going to say,

where is customs? Rihanna de Claret and Teddy. Do you sell umbrellas? And other useful phrases to keep by your side when you travel abroad. I wonder what the French learn in English. Where is Greg's? If you live in France and you've some knowledge of the French examination system and you'd like to tell us what the English oral exam consists of, then we'd be delighted to hear that. But obviously do put it in translation because we won't know.

I've got to concentrate now on getting that spinach out. So have a lovely couple of days. We'll be back Monday at around this time, whatever time it is, because some of you are abroad. Oh, oh! Well done for getting to the end of another episode of Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. And don't forget, there is even more of us every afternoon on Times Radio.

It's Monday to Thursday, three till five. You can pop us on when you're pottering around the house or heading out in the car on the school run or running a bank. Thank you for joining us and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. Don't be so silly. Running a bank? I know ladies don't get that. A lady listener. I know, sorry.

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