Eddie Izzard for EU president

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British comedian Eddie Izzard made a stop in Washington last week, and I got a chance to see his show at, ironically, the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Constitution Hall. (Ironic because Izzard is famous for doing shows in drag.)

Having seen Dress to Kill, his HBO special, I was psyched to hear some quality jokes about the European Union. Izzard is a big fan of EU integration, and he often weaves pro-EU commentary into his act. As he puts it in Dress to Kill, the EU is “the cutting edge of politics in an extraordinarily boring way.” Or in 2006 for the Guardian, “The EU is like a huge rock festival: everyone has colour-coded passes and there are no wars.” He even told Newsweek recently that he eventually wants to go into European politics on a platform of “logical governance.” In his view, the stakes could not be higher:

We’ve got to make it work in Europe. People are very worried about sovereignty and the loss of sovereignty. I think the stakes are if we don’t make the European Union work, then the world is screwed. End of story.

Instead of EU wisecracks, though, Izzard treated us to a long and extremely funny disquisition on Wikipedia, prehistory, and religion. In his encore, he did work in a quick plug for the European Space Agency, but that was about it.