

Eddie Izzard: Great Expectations
Dyslexic comedy icon Eddie Izzard had read very few great works of literature, but having made herself read ‘Great Expectations’ a few years – in part because of the discovery Charles Dickens was exactly 150 years older than her – the serial marathon runner’s imagination was fired up, and she came up with the idea of a one-woman solo adaptation. And now here it is, adapted by her brother Mark, with Eddie playing 19 of the book's characters. Although it’s popped up around London before in work-in-progress form, it actually debuted to warm notices in New York last year. Now it’s back on Dickens’s home turf and you can see why she wanted to get it right: no matter how many laughs Izzard milks it for – and we’re assuming quite a few – it’s being billed as an earnest endeavor, not just a Dicken parody.