How are we all on our geometric progressions? Every ten years or so, I like to catch up with Edward John Izzard. He's a funny guy. Around 1994 I was fortunate enough to see him for the first time just down the road at the Ipswich Corn Exchange (previously) in a crowd of, say, 900. About 1993 me and G (who's never quite worked out why she wasn't there for the Ipswich gig) did the round trip to catch him at the Nottingham Arena in a crowd of, say, 9000. Not seen him since but he's played the O2 (20,000) and Wembley Arena (over 40,000).

Friday 11th July, 2014, 8pm, and we're sitting in the auditorium at Bexhill. Music stops, house lights dim, and on to the stage of the Izzard Theatre strides local boy made good Eddie Izzard. Capacity of this venue, sited within the 6th form college, is 200 seats. We are very lucky people indeed.

He's in top form, enquiring how far people have come and struggling to believe that folk have travelled all the way from Hastings and beyond. First up, though, is one Yacine Belhousse, a comedian from that France. He does 40 minutes almost entirely in a language not his own -- English -- and, much like his mentor, doesn't really tell jokes so much as set up absurd situations. "Fudge", was a particularly good line about, er, a vending machine being shot.

On comes Eddie after the interval to talk, he says, about human sacrifice. There's much historical talk inc. bits of French and German. There's some autobiographical stuff about stealing make-up from Boots on Devonshire Road. There are many mentions of the unfortunate Steve. After a mock going-off coming-back-on, there's also a generous encore of the Death Star Canteen.

You laugh, you cry, and sometimes you're not entirely sure why, but it's a joy.