The Big Intimacy Tour: Stripped Too kicks off October 23 in the U.K., with stops scheduled in Nottingham, Sheffield, Newcastle upon Tyne, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham, Cardiff, Bournemouth, Eastbourne, Brighton, London and Belfast, as well as Dublin, Ireland; Malmo, Stockholm and Goteborg, Sweden and Oslo, Norway.
The U.S. leg of Izzard’s run launches January 16, with a blow out appearance at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. Additional dates in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and San Francisco will be announced in the coming weeks.
Tickets for the MSG show go on sale July 1.
Speaking of tickets, it seems Izzard has joined the rapidly growing chorus of artists decrying the often mercenary prices being charged by secondary ticketing sites and had his peeps post this message on his Web site urging his U.K. fans not to do business with them.
“It has come to our attention that various ticket agencies are offering Eddie tickets at extortionate marked-up prices. Frustratingly this is something outside of our control despite the imposing of a six ticket limit per purchase.
“Eddie was particularly adamant that ticket prices should be kept to a minimum. £30 outside London and £35 in London.
“If you want to purchase tickets at the original price, check only ticket.web.com or go directly to the venues. If you can’t find a specific seat or ticket you want, then try the other sites (which are all ticket scalper or ticket tout sites and who will charge you a lot more for your purchase – for no reason. Just for their profit.)
“Until legislation is passed, the only way to stop scalpers is to not use their Web sites.”
Izzard was honored by some of his oldest fans recently, when he was invited to take part in a memorial service in London for veterans of the Normandy invasion and was made an honorary member of the Normandy Veterans’ Association.
The honor was bestowed upon the comedian after he donated £100,000 to the organization to enable its members to travel to Normandy in early June as part of the 65th anniversary of the invasion.
Izzard also paid for veterans across the U.K. to be bussed in so that they could take part in the June 21 memorial at the Cenotaph in London’s Whitehall district. This year’s event is likely to be the last time many of them will be able to participate because most are now in their 80s and 90s.
“Eddie Izzard is quite a guy,” Ken Sturdy, chairman of the South Devon DNA, told the South Devon Herald Express. “He said he was honoured to make our acquaintance.
“He called us heroes. That was very kind, but we thought to call us that was stretching things a bit far. He contributed a substantial amount of money to the association because there had been little response from the government.
“In London he mixed with us all and when we went to the Clarence for a beer he came and had one with us.”
Fans with access to BBC Radio 4, can catch Izzard taking part in one of the U.K.’s most interesting talk shows, “Chain Reaction.”
The program, described as “tag-team interviewing” because last week’s interviewee becomes this week’s interviewer, will air July 1.