Politics, history, sport, pipe smoking and religion, all just part of the huge range of subjects covered by star comedian Eddie Izzard at Latitude last night.

Comedy fans waiting to see the headline comic of the festival were already 10-deep outside of the Comedy Arena with 30 minutes still to go before Izzard began.

The cross-dressing funny man did not disappoint his eagerly-waiting audience either.

There were running jokes aplenty as Izzard sped through his set like a steam train, with chickens, Romans, kings, God, Darth Vader, goats and lions all thrown into the melting pot of his whacky take on human history.

But his high brow content had the Latitude audience eating out of his hand and the laughs kept coming from first minute to last.

He mocked religions openly as he talked about his atheism and talked about the darker sides of human development and wars.

He described Richard the Lionheart as the 'David Beckham of kings' and questioned if people would follow God if he were to ever come down from heaven and then address the human race in a squeaky voice.

But an Izzard set is never far from politics currently, after the 51-year-old announced earlier this year that he intends to run to become an MP or the Lord Mayor of London in the future.

Towards the end of the set a woman shouted 'Eddie, be the next London mayor', to which he just smiled at the time.

But after receiving a rapturous applause at the end of his performance, Izzard then came back on stage briefly.

He confirmed his intention to become an MP or London's mayor but reminded his fans that he will make mistakes along the way in his political adventure but that he wanted to try 'because I don't like the right wing'.

With the charm and wit he demonstrated in his show at Henham Park last night, not to mention his army of loyal fans, few can argue he wouldn't have a good chance of bringing that political dream to life.

David Freezer