A trio of articles on Laughing Matters in Paris

AFP Lifestyle-France-comedy feature
  " English stand-up comedy crosses Channel, tickles the French "
   by Kate Millar December 10 2004
 
Stand-up comedy -- edgy, tribalistic and a part of  Anglo-Saxon culture -- has taken root in Paris. And -- don't laugh -- it's in English and it's got the French chuckling too.
Of course, the French have plenty of comedy of their own, so it's all the more surprising they go for this fast and furious, politically incorrect and off-the-cuff humour.
Big names in US and British comedy come to Paris to play two or three nights in a small room at the back of the Hotel du Nord, the setting for the classic 1938 French film of the same name.
"Je suis un comic qui a gagne des prix -- malheureusement les prix, c'est pour la natation," British playwright and BBC radio presenter Arthur Smith quipped at a recent gig, translating his own joke: "I'm an award-winning comedian. Unfortunately the award was for swimming."
Most performers take a shot at speaking at least some French on stage, and one Frenchman seated near the front at Smith's show found himself a part of the act when he admitted to not following every word.
Smith, a self-confessed lover of the French who put on the show during a weekend in Paris to celebrate his 50th birthday, is in good company.
A raft of award-winning comedians have lined up to be pioneers of this kind of stand-up in Paris -- Eddie Izzard, Greg Proops, Ardal O'Hanlon, Alan Davies, Reginald D. Hunter, Dom Irrera and Rich Hall.
Behind it all is Karel Beer, a Brit living in Paris for over 20 years, who set up 'Laughing Matters' and has been bringing stand-up comics over to perform in Paris for nearly 10 years.
Eighteen months ago, he began doing the same in Milan.
"Paris is a pretty sexy destination, I think it's probably the sexiest destination" for comics to perform, Beer told AFP, adding that comedians also relished getting to do a gig lasting two hours or more.
In addition, they get the space and time to try out and develop new material, don't have to worry about using old gags and don't have to share the bill with other performers, he added.
Smith, whose first stand-up show in Paris was done all in French in 1994, said the buzz of spending time in Paris was reason enough to come and entertain up to 120 people at a time.
"I don't think comedians would come here particularly for their career as such, or in order to get spotted, or to be on French TV, I mean that's not going to happen, is it?" he said.
The Eurostar rail link between London and Paris has helped, and with gigs over three days comics have found new material by the second day of being in Paris which they can then use in their shows.
About 15 percent on average of audiences are French, Beer said, admitting to getting a kick out of "turning the natives on to a particular form of your own culture they have been aware of but not involved in."
"They realise they can be... an integral part of it. The language barrier disappears in the end."
"Bonsoir, nous sommes des pionniers" ("Evening, we are pioneers") was the first thing Izzard said when he went on stage in Paris, according to Beer.
US comic Greg Proops is among those to have played the Hotel du Nord on the picturesque Canal St Martin more than once. Although he includes a lot of gags about French culture and Paris, his material also targets US politics.
"For Americans there is a sense of liberation being overseas," he said adding there was "more latitude to say what you feel". He said you could spot the Parisians in the audience as "they confer after each joke".
Certainly none of the French members of the audience at Arthur Smith's show seemed to take umbrage. On the contrary, Frenchman Kenny Sanchis, a 35-year-old policeman, said getting the French involved in the act was "cool".
"The English humour is always on the edge, not vulgar but it makes you think it's vulgar," he said, adding that French humour was "not so sharp".
Jean-Francois Rudler, 32, who inadvertently found himself involved in some of Smith's gags, said he understood only 50 to 70 percent of the show but still enjoyed it.
French comedienne Anne Roumanoff, who performs in France, Montreal and has done a show in English at the Hotel du Nord, characterised English humour as deadpan and with a sense of the absurd, as in Monty Python.
"In truth, the real difference is that until recently French comics did sketches with characterizations and did not involve themselves personally" in the jokes, she said.
Five years ago, stand-up comedy was not generally known in France but has now become trendy. "It's become very snobbish to say I do stand-up."
WALL STREET JOURNAL - WEEKEND JOURNAL
A New `Atmosphere' at Hotel du Nord
Crowds Fill French Film Landmark to Hear Jokes on Business
By A. Craig Copetas 27 April 2001

The Wall Street Journal (Copyright (c) 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

Paris -- Funny business is booming at the Hotel du Nord, of all places. At the site of the classic 1938 French film featuring two lovers who make a suicide pact in depression-era Paris, two businessmen are presenting a very different approach to the global economy's current troubles: comedy.
Don't laugh. The partners who call themselves Beer Necessities -- an Englishman with the unlikely name Karel Beer and the Frenchman James Arch -- see big-time business in corporate executives paying 120 French francs (18.29 euros) a night to snicker at their own misfortune on the site of French cinema's most celebrated suicide agreement.
The white-collar Europeans and Americans packed into this former flophouse on the cobblestone banks of the Canal St. Martin aren't looking for a re-enactment of the Marcel Carne movie's famous scene, in which the sultry actress Arletty immortalized the line "Atmosphere. Atmosphere. Do I look like someone atmospheric?" shortly before her co-star gets shot. But thanks to Arletty and the endangered state of today's global market, life has returned to the creaky landmark, which had been boarded up for over 20 years until Mr. Arch reopened the ground-floor rooms in 1995.
"People are nervous about the future. Allowing them to laugh at their own economic situation vents the tension," Mr. Beer says.
Comedians play every Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night in a restaurant above the hotel's old stable. The space is intimate, the drinks are cheap and the specialty is business humor by stand-up comics imported from Britain and the U.S. Each show delivers a hearty dose of irrational exuberance, especially for French film sophisticates. For them, watching a lunatic Anglo jokester prancing around the bar at Hotel du Nord is as unlikely as watching Casablanca and finding Elvis sitting in for Sam at the piano.
When the purists object, Mr. Beer argues that cracking business jokes at the Hotel du Nord is perfectly pitched to the times. He estimates about 15% of the audience is French and eager for chuckles. On some nights the comics play to large groups of French students on field trips to improve their English. "English-language stand-up comedy at the Hotel du Nord is very funny in itself," says the 53-year-old promoter. "This hotel is at the heart of French culture, but everyone in the audience is anxious about their jobs and how to survive the poor economy, just like the characters in the movie."
Dashingly dressed in a suede jacket with a wine-colored scarf around his neck, hotel owner James Arch says the legend of the Hotel du Nord is sturdy enough to survive foreign comedians. "Too bad the same thing can't be said about the building," Mr. Arch adds, brushing a cigarette past his thin black moustache. "The only original thing about this place is the facade." The historic bedrooms were long ago turned into private apartments.
For decades the only visitors were busloads of Japanese tourists stopping to have themselves videotaped screeching "Atmosphere" beneath the postcard-perfect marquee. But that changed in 1995, when Mr. Arch refurbished the lobby bar and the restaurant, where the jokes now go down. "This is real Paris," he says of the hotel. "We did a lot of work to get the place back into shape." Then one night over drinks, the two men decided it would be funny to stage English-language comedy revues.
So while Mr. Arch massages the myth and pours the wine, Mr. Beer sets about luring pranksters to Paris. "Well-known comedians like to come here because it's a unique crowd and they feel safe about experimenting with new material," Mr. Beer explains. The timing couldn't have been better. Big-draw comics like Robert Newman from Britain and Will Durst from the U.S. were expanding their routines to include globalization gags. Mr. Beer claims one of the best one-liners ever dropped on the New Economy was delivered at the Hotel du Nord by the American comedian Rich Hall: "If Bill Gates put all his money under his mattress it would take him 13 years to fall out of bed."
Mr. Arch says visions of the Microsoft boss counting his money back in the U.S. spurred many young French entrepreneurs to fine-tune their English watching the Hotel du Nord comedy sessions. By 1996 the room was hip, and now it continues to attract multinational executives, diplomats and economists. "Our earliest core customers came from the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and Anderson Consulting," Mr. Beer says.
For comedian Robert Newman, his three-night gig at the Hotel du Nord allows him to take a pulse on what people find funny about European Union fiscal policy. His routine is peppered with satirical barbs on unintentionally absurd newspaper headlines such as "8,500 Workers Laid Off Due to Surplus Component Shrinking at Cisco Systems" and "Attempts at Western-Style Economy Fail in Africa."
"Joking about business in France, in French, is taboo," says Bruno Amourdedien, an equities trader at Credit Agricole. The French banker says he comes to the Hotel du Nord to have his job pummeled and laugh for a few hours at least about the rash of strikes, private-sector layoffs and dismal state of the franc against other major currencies. During a break in Mr. Newman`s show, Mr. Amourdedien lifts a glass of beer toward the comedian. "What you said about Bretton Woods was really true and funny," he says.
"You don't have to work hard to make Bretton Woods funny," Mr. Newman deadpans on the 1944 international economic powwow in a New Hampshire forest, which created the International Monetary Fund and set the foundation for a global economy. "Grown economists actually went into the woods to find themselves and take tango lessons after dinner. The result was globalization," says Mr. Newman, who honed his economic theories as a student at Cambridge University.
The appeal of business humor has grown dramatically. "Five years ago it was just me making economic jokes," says Mr. Newman. "Now, many of the stand-up comedians who worked politics have turned to economics because audiences the world over know it's the businessmen who are telling the politicians what to do. How companies conduct business is satire writing itself."
Mr. Newman, who says about 70% of his gags are aimed at economic issues, tweaks his material from financial publications and corporate reports. He traveled to anti-globalization rallies in Seattle and Prague to garner gags. "Economic jokes get big laughs," says Mr. Newman, who is certain that nobody really understands stock and bond market listings. He says his audiences range from disgruntled Marxist polytechnic-school students in England to bankers seeking to drown their sorrows.
"A night out at the Hotel du Nord helps liven up life in the office," says Mr. Beer, stretched out in a booth beneath a movie poster of the doomed Arletty character. "Especially if they get to work and discover they've lost their jobs."
Bonjour mes amis / I am what's known as a stand-up

The shame of it! The French are getting lessons in comedy from the British.
 John Henley The Guardian Monday March 29, 1999

What makes the French laugh? A weighty philosophical question, to which many a tome has been devoted. They adore sophisticated wit, the well-turned phrase qui tue, the finely-tuned jeu de mots - but also the broadest farce, the silliest slapstick, the most basic and brutal satire.

What nobody thought they liked, until now, was stand-up. The French are as strict about what constitutes comedy as they are about the proper use of the subjunctive. There are countless comedians, but they tell gags or impersonate politicians; there are one-man-shows, but they are multi-character mini-plays. None of the raucous spontaneity, the feed-off-your-audience frenzy, the unacceptably Anglo-Saxon anarchy of stand-up.

So it comes as something of a surprise to find that some of the biggest names in British and American club comedy are packing out, for three shows a week, a sweaty, smoke-filled back room in a disused hotel by the Canal Saint-Martin.

Plenty of them make an effort with the language. 'At school, this is what we learned in French,' Mark Steel's set began. 'Completely bloody useless. Ou est le livre? Le livre est sous la table. Ou est le lapin? Le lapin est sous la table. Ou est le chat? Le chat est, um, sous la table.'

The audience tittered, the fumes of a hundred Rothmans and Gauloises hanging in an Anglo-French haze. 'But what I always wondered,' he continued, 'is what would happen if you ever really needed it. If, say, you were on a beach, with some French people in the water, when you saw a shark.'

They saw it coming. 'Au secours!' you might shriek. 'Danger! Un requin! Il y a un requin!' Assuming they'd ever taught you that at school. 'Mais ou est le requin?' the French would shout back. 'Le requin le requin Oh Christ! Le requin est, um, sous la table.' Steel's audience laughed a lot at that one.

Even Karel Beer smiled, although he'd heard it all the night before. This Briton's unlikely comedy club, Laughing Matters, has been a regular fixture in Paris for more than a year. He started it after spending an evening at London's Comedy Store and realising what he, the rest of Paris's 120,000-strong English-speaking community and - why not? - the French were missing out on.

In a country where the word humour was only officially admitted to the vocabulary in 1932, where English comedy means Monty Python or, if you're very well up, Absolutely Fabulous, and where most of the population speak English about as fluently as the English speak French, it did not immediately look like a winner.

But the list of award-winning stand-ups who have made the trip - including Eddie Izzard, Alan Davies, Jeff Green, Tommy Tiernan, Rich Hall, Arj Barker, Mark Thomas, Simon Munnery and Al Murray - is testimony to the fact that it has worked. Many have come more than once.

'Everyone's up for it,' says Bill Bailey, the Time Out prize-winner who will play the Hotel du Nord - famous in France as the backdrop for the 1938 film of the same name - for the first time over the Easter weekend. Two weeks later he'll be followed by another British comedian, Ian Cognito.

Bailey, who started his performing career acting in French plays and does a very funny French rip-off of Doctor Who (Docteur Qui?), is looking forward hugely to his Paris gig. 'I like performing in Europe,' he said. 'I think people's senses of humour are actually coinciding more and more. There's more of a culture gap when I perform in Australia.'

Eddie Izzard, whose English act includes a surreal routine about trying to make his way round France armed only with the words 'Mon singe est dans l'arbre' (`My monkey is in the tree') is so keen to make a go of it on the other side of the Channel that he booked himself three weeks of intensive one-to-one French lessons.

What is drawing the talent, Beer reckons, is certainly not the money - which is minimal - nor even the prospect of a few nights in a Paris hotel. It is the chance to do three two-hour shows alone on the bill, rather than with five or six others; the opportunity to try out new material; and the knowledge that you are pioneering, in France at least, a new form of humour.

'Half the crowd, the expats, are desperate for humour in their own language,' says Beer, an expat of 30 years standing. 'The other half, the French, have heard stand-up is cool and want to find out more. It means the performers can really stretch, can take risks they never would in London.'

Eager to learn, several young French comedians have become regular visitors to the Hotel du Nord. 'We're not there yet, but we're becoming more and more open to the idea,' said Sophie Forte, a comedienne with a one-woman show and a clutch of film roles behind her. 'We've always thought the British were very conventional, but in terms of humour, it's us who are the conventional ones.'

French audiences won't pay to see something that 'could go anywhere, into some absurd fantasy,' she says. 'They want something that's rehearsed, that'll give them their money's worth. And the whole idea of the audience being part of the show is unheard of for us. French comics don't talk to their audiences, they don't like them - they talk down to them.'

So strict are the confines of French humour that one French classical actor-turned-comedian, Bertrand Bossard, has taken to doing stand-up sets in English. Mixing visual humour and Anglo-French stereotypes into what he calls 'comic trash mime', his show went down well enough at last year's Edinburgh Festival to win him a dozen bookings in London clubs, with more coming the week after Easter.

'For me, we remain very two different peoples,' he said. 'The big difference is that the English can laugh at themselves, and the French can't - yet. We're changing, we're getting more cynical, but it won't be until French comedians really start to mock themselves that we'll be ready for stand-up. For the time being, I'll be working in English.'