A FEW years ago, around about the time Baddiel & Newman packed out Wembley Arena, comedy was being called the new rock'n'roll.

Eddie Izzard was once at the cutting edge of surrealist comic subversion. Now, he is doing his first tour in four years after dabbling in film and theatre; he plays America before Britain, performs in air-hangar arenas in front of a big screen, and he wears nail varnish, lipstick, stockings and high-heeled boots, just like Kiss. His first-half frock coat is so Mick Jagger; his post-interval military-style jacket owes not a little to another lipgloss fiend, Michael Jackson.

Very rock'n'roll superstar and not very Sexie.

Maybe it is ego, maybe curiosity, but Eddie's decision to go 'larging it' on the impersonal arena circuit - Sexie tour juggernauts and all - convenes all comic conventions of intimacy, close-up detail and banter with the audience. How do you respond to hecklers amid 12,000 people? No one can hear you scream in so much space; when someone butts in with an incoherent saucy comment, Eddie can but smile.

Before all that there's the matter of getting there. First, M1 traffic works; then car park queues; and finally came the irritation of being made to walk to the back of the hall to pound all the way back up to row eight, when only one flight of stairs away from my seat in the first place.

At least that leg-stretcher provided the chance to 'spot' a dot called Eddie in the distance, and note how vital that screen was for the 'cheap seats'. In fact, the back was so far away from the stage, a time delay on the punchline created a wave of laughter.

From row eight, it was possible to watch former Sheffield student Eddie almost at ringside, looking lovely, strutting like a peacock. Then again, that close up, the screen was distracting, Eddie looming large like King Kong when the man in the diamante skirt split to his thigh is refined and dandy. Who needs another Eddie large when one Eddie Large in comedy is more than enough already?

Topical comedy has moved on, more aggressive in its use and abuse of audiences, but what of Eddie's surrealist world? He's still on his own planet, imagining a place where flies and dentist drills would be so much more pleasant if they sounded like Gregorian chants; a reversed world where horse riding from the horse's perspective is the sport of child-wearing. His logic is still unique, but unlike his huge stage, his canvas hasn't broadened.

Updated: 13:00 Thursday, December 11, 2003