Eddie Izzard on Edinburgh, the Fringe and his memoir

From the verbal dexterity of his shows to his prolific marathon running, Eddie Izzard is a hard man to keep up with; that's not to even mention his political passions and film output. It'd be easy to think it has always been this way. On first impression, his early childhood seems quite nomadic. The family following his father's career with BP – from what was then the British colony of Aden, to Northern Ireland and Wales. Might this help explain why Izzard today always seems on the go?

"I wouldn't term it like that," he says. "Initially, we were on the move, which was related to Dad's work. But, once we got to 1969, and moved to Bexhill, we were there for 11 years." 

Izzard offers a less romantic childhood explanation for his perpetual motion. Simply put: he grew out of travel sickness: "I used to throw up everywhere. My motion sickness problem just went on and on and on. Then in my late teens I seemed to get better. When I wasn't feeling ill I was overjoyed. The idea I could have a meal, a glass of wine and look out the window was fantastic."

His new memoir Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death and Jazz Chickens evolved from the documentary Believe: the Eddie Izzard Story. During that film, Izzard identified the real source of his constant drive – the loss of his mother, when he was only six. In a moment of self-revelation, he said: 'I keep thinking that if I do all these things, and keep going and going, then... she'll come back.' 

The book is full of tender moments, and especially of love; love for his father and brother come through on every page. There is a brief, idyllic time before his mother's death, when the family were all together in County Down. "That was where we were happiest," he says.  

The recurring patterns of Izzard's life come from his determination. As soon as he works out a way round some obstacle, time and again he masters the field. One example is on the school football pitch. Just from seeing how to block an attacking pass while training, it unlocks a whole world of unknown confidence and potential. Izzard soon goes from no-hoper to the first team. Today, he performs stand-up in several languages, despite having little more than high school French to go on when he set himself that aim. And he'd never run a marathon before taking on 43 in 51 days in 2009. 

He names an educational method that is a little like his own. Although his first experience of the Nuffield syllabus may have contributed to him flunking A-Level Physics. As he explains: "The Nuffield syllabus said: 'Go and work out your own experiments, go and work out what you want to investigate, work out your projects, come back with results and then we'll grade it.' All I'd known before then was, 'Here are the notes, learn the notes and regurgitate it.' Nuffield was a different way of working. I was totally thrown by it initially. And, I sort of rejected it. I thought, 'I can't make up things to do.'

"But, later I found that everything I did was like the Nuffield syllabus. Working out how to do street performance, or how to come out as transgender, and then going into stand-up, or politics, and running marathons... Working things out as you go along, working out a way in, and getting better at it."

This includes his first ambitions to perform in Edinburgh. Izzard was studying accountancy at Sheffield University at the time, but he did so almost for the express purpose of infiltrating the student theatre society – all in the hope of emulating the revue and Footlights career path of his Monty Python heroes. As it happened, he'd picked one of the only student theatre groups not going to Edinburgh, though this proved no hurdle. 

One of the most vivid chapters in the memoir is Izzard's first trip to the Royal Mile. He rocks into the Fringe office unannouced and badgers the staff for advice, before returning to Sheffield with his hands stuffed with old programmes and forms. "I always knew I had to get to the Edinburgh festival. It was supposed to be through the Footlights at Cambridge. But, I went to Sheffield, which was better in the end because I had to build everything from scratch. I went up at 19 to work out how to do it, and later did the same with street performing. I still remember the Mound. I was just doing comedy well enough that people were reacting to it and coming to watch. I feel I arrived in Edinburgh."

It's easy to overlook that Izzard was performing in Edinburgh throughout the 1980s, completely outside of stand-up. He wasn't part of the Alternative Cabaret scene galvanising comedy at the Fringe. "Alternative comedy, that sensibility, was always where I was mentally. But, when I first went to London I didn't know it was there. I just didn't know. And so I gravitated towards street performing." The influence of street performing on his stand-up still shows up, however big the gig. "I've played Hollywood Bowl twice, because its an outdoor gig, like street performing. I'm happy to be outdoors."

How does he feel coming to Edinburgh outside of the Fringe? "I did 12 Edinburgh festivals over 13 years; it's nice to come outside of the festivals. The festival is great, but a lot of people from Edinburgh go away and lease out their flats. And, I want to talk to Edinburgh citizens."

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An Evening with Eddie Izzard, EICC, 6 July, 8pm, £28

Believe Me, A Memoir of Love, Death and Jazz Chickens by Eddie Izzard, out now, published by Michael Joseph, £20 hardback