As a Briton who has performed for audiences all over the world, Eddie Izzard has discovered that no country has a national sense of humor. “Humor is human, that’s my theory,” he says. “It’s not national. There is no American, British or German sense of humor. It just doesn’t exist. But what there is, and you can compare this to theater, film and music, is a mainstream sense of humor and more of an alternative sense of humor.” Izzard recently started performing in French and German, but he doesn’t adjust his act for those audiences. “Being a very driven person but also a lazy one, I didn’t want to come up with new stuff all the time,” he says. “I wanted one set that works around the world, kind of like a really good film.” One subject he discusses in his act is human sacrifice. “That’s the birth of extremism,” he says. “We have to kill people for our God as opposed to doing something positive like a rain dance. Why would Gods want us to kill something they put on Earth? It doesn’t make any sense.”
8 p.m. Wednesday. $47-$60. Aronoff Center, 650 Walnut St., Downtown, 513-621-2787, cincinnatiarts.org.
This article appears in May 21-27, 2014.