ABSTRACT
Lofty laughter. Such was the queer pursuit of Russian writer, Nikolai Gogol, whose impressionistic caricatures of everyday life captured the vulgarity in beatific visions of the 19th century. The same might be said of British stand-up comedian, Eddie Izzard, whose surrealistic depictions of both the banal and the elevated aspects of our human condition seem to proclaim: “Onward! onward! away with the wrinkle that furrows the brow and the stern gloom of the face! At once and suddenly let us plunge into life with all its noiseless clatter and little bells …” (Gogol 1997, p. 135). And this amidst the clink and clunk of high heels as Izzard struts across a stage.
