Not satisfied being probably the only native English-speaking comedian ever to perform in French (as he did recently in Paris), conquering Hollywood, Broadway, the West End and US TV, tonight the wonderfully witty and inventive Eddie Izzard is about to make showbiz history as the first stand-up comic to perform at the Hollywood Bowl in a solo act (Monty Python were a troupe/theatrical experience. The Bowl apparently never books comedy).

Izzard told Gustavo Turner at the LA Weekly that to “play the Hollywood Bowl is like the American dream”:

“I’ve been to the Bowl a couple of times and it’s the Greek amphitheater. Once I play Hollywood Bowl, I’ll feel I’m allowed to play actual Greek amphitheaters here in Europe,” he says. Given his steady progress since his breakthrough in the 1990s — when he first became noticed as an enormously witty improviser after years of hungry obscurity — he’s most likely not kidding. Izzard doing his History Channel–style material about the classical civilizations at the Acropolis? Eddie Izzard Live at the Colosseum (the original one in Rome)? Why not? All Izzard apparently has to do to accomplish something is set his mind to it.

Izzard’s Twitter bio says “I’m a British European, I think like an American and I was born in an Arabic country.” The ambitious, cosmopolitan actor/comedian told the LA Weekly that around 2020, he plans to enter politics, perhaps as a British delegate to the European Union. I’d love to see that happen.

Below, a young Eddie Izzard wows the crowd at the Terrence Higgins Trust benefit show organized in 1991 by Stephen Fry, with his tale of escaping Nazi Germany and being raised by wolves.