Three Levels of Comedy – According to Eddie Izzard

I read a few interviews with Eddie Izzard upon studying him for my comedian presentation. In one interview there was a bit of him explaining the three levels if humor. Jerry's observations on the everyday life put him in the second level, but for explanations sake, “There’s sort of three levels of comedy that I notice. One is comedy in the room-which is ‘Where are you from, Sir? Where did you get that haircut?’… talking about stuff in the room. Everyone can see what’s going on and they react to it-it’s the first level.” Eddie uses this first level as the most basic humor for an audience with short attention spans, childlike low. He continues, “The second level is observational, which most people get into: ‘I was in the supermarket the other day,’ and people know about supermarkets, and they’re going, ‘Yeah, supermarket…’”. Eddie continues on a third level, but before I proceed, this second level has Jerry Seinfeld written all over it. His milk routine is exactly the humor Izzard is describing, and it is the same humor I find funniest. Elaborating on one of my blogs from earlier, this is the most shocking type of humor for me. People, like Jerry, make a living off of supermarket observations. If it’s so easy, why can’t I do it? But I will give Jerry some credit because he has a bunch of Porsches, and I do not. And finally, “The third level is when you get surreal, when you say, “ ‘I was on the moon, and a man came up with a gun, and he was chewing gum and playing piano at the same time.’ You really have to have them with you and wanting to buy into that world if they’re gunna come with it”. This third level is primarily where Eddie dabbles in his comedy. For instance, his centerpiece for his “Dress to Kill” tour evolved around the Inquisition of the Catholic Church and a long skit on different circumstances regarding the pope. This type of humor is just a little beyond observational where the audience has to pay a little closer attention.