LOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING; CROSS-DRESSING COMIC BRINGS HEADY REVUE TO TOWN.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Theater Critic

British comic Eddie Izzard has described himself as the ``illegimate offspring'' of Monty Python's Flying Circus (actually, Izzard uses a much racier term). You'll see what he means if you're quick enough to catch Izzard's limited engagement at the Tiffany Theater in West Hollywood, where the mob will be forming on the right once the word gets out.

In his immensely likable, stealthily intelligent new revue ``Dress to Kill,'' Izzard taps a deep vein of Python-esque humor while riffing on every known subject from squirrels' secret anxieties, Easter candy and Charlton Heston, to Steve McQueen's coolness in ``The Great Escape,'' Bill Clinton's sexcapades, Stalin and Pol Pot's crimes against humanity, the reason why all the disciples sat on one side of the table at the Last Supper, and what Neil Armstrong really said when he first stepped on the moon.

It's no less remarkable that Izzard performs these bungee jumps of consciousness while attired in a Chinese jacket, black vinyl pants, frosted hair and black toenail polish and wobbling around on 4-inch heels, his bright blue eyes flashing schoolboy mischief.

Did we mention that Izzard is a transvestite? Perhaps it's because cross-dressing is such a time-honored custom among British comics (and British politicians) that Izzard scarcely feels compelled to mention his fashion preferences in the course of his performance. If anything, he is too un-self-revealing, the polar opposite of his neurotically confessional U.S. colleagues.

Describing himself as a ``male lesbian'' who ``fancies girls,'' Izzard projects a charming sweetness while striking an attitude of well-informed incredulity. Unlike most stand-ups, he doesn't spout one-liners; he creates characters, mostly grounded in pop culture and humanity's self-inflicted spoofs. Izzard casually distills 10,000 years of civilization into a one-man vaudeville routine.

Riffing about Stonehenge and its short-lived predecessors, ``Woodhenge'' and ``Strawhenge,'' Izzard imagines the befuddlement of the Welsh stonecutters forced to lug big rocks 200 miles to Salisbury Plain. Without seeming hostile or ugly, he gently mocks the tea-and-scones conventions of ``Englishness,'' including a well-placed jab at the ultimate Merchant-Ivory movie, ``A Room With a View, a Staircase and a Pond.''

While Izzard's style is underground - he looks like the warm-up act for a ``rave'' party - his material is decidedly mainstream. Nothing wrong with that. Izzard dares to presume that his audiences are intelligent, well-read, curious beings. How many other stand-ups would offer a comparison between Shaggy and Scooby-Doo and Leopold Bloom in James Joyce's ``Ulysses''?

Holding forth on a nearly bare stage, save for some cartoony self-portraits that look like Andy Warhol knockoffs, Izzard can look funny simply by flicking his floppy arms and legs, rolling his eyes, then lapsing into a beatific smile. At two-plus hours, the show's momentum flags slightly toward the end. By that time, you'll already be plotting your next visit with the funniest gender-flopping Brit since John Cleese last put on a wig.

THE FACTS

What: Eddie Izzard's ``Dress to Kill.''

Where: Tiffany Theater, 8532 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood.

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday; through Sept. 27.

Tickets: $40. Call [phone].

Our rating: Three Stars.

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Photo

Photo: Eddie Izzard performs in drag, but his preference for women's clothes hardly merits mention in his one-man revue, ``Dress to Kill.''