No ho ho! Or why Eddie Izzard’s not joking this Christmas…

On a chilly Christmas night in Manchester, a drunk with a past finds an odd man lying next to the canal. His shirt says ‘i’m called Antony’, but he doesn’t know who he’s. In order that’s where Eddie Izzard have been hiding.

The comedian, who was quiet at the showbusiness front for the past couple of years (he was running marathons for charity instead), should be back in force within the coming weeks.

He plays Long John Silver within the forthcoming Sky1 drama Treasure Island, but before that he’s the mysterious Antony in BBC1 drama The Lost Christmas.

Plucked from danger: Eddie Izzard as Antony and Larry Miles as Goose

The 90-minute film is a co-production with CBBC and is made with older children in mind, however it contains very adult themes of loss.

There is a 10-year-old tearaway nicknamed Goose who lost both his parents the Christmas before, a pair who lost their daughter, a guy who has lost his family and a physician who has lost his wife.

The mysterious Antony unites them, however it is difficult to see who or what he’s.

He can appear and vanish at will, has an array of wonderful facts which spill out randomly as he talks and he has a mystical ability to assist people find what they were searching for.

‘It’s massive to be on television over Christmas,’ says Eddie, 49.

‘It’s a bleak subject, but i feel individuals are used to that at Christmas — investigate Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol. Like them, it is a film about sacrifice and second chances.’

Ironically both Eddie and Larry Mills, who plays Goose, had a larger understanding than many about loss, as both lost their mothers at a tender age.

‘It is a family film but a great number of kids won’t get the subjects of loss because they won’t have experienced it.

Curiously, Larry and his family, and my family, both had family losses,’ says Eddie.

‘That was a wierd thing. I didn’t know the way to broach it but it surely was definitely in there for either one of us. This can be a dramatic film, greatly rooted surely.’

This particular role is rare for Eddie in that there’s barely any comedy.

‘i like that there’s no comedy,’ admits the star.

‘I played the nature straight and that was fun in itself. He has no fear because he has no memory and that’s interesting. It can provide an ethereal quality.’

The end has a twist which only 1 person in an audience of greater than 500 people on the first screening of the drama was expecting.
But, thankfully, it restores a little of the magic of Christmas.

‘You must have that,’ says Eddie. ‘You are able to’t be completely bleak at Christmas.’

• The Lost Christmas is on BBC1 on Sunday at 5.30pm, and CBBC on Christmas  Eve at 5.30pm.