When I arrived in Chicago, my knowledge of the city was limited to Al Capone and prohibition stories. 

You can easily figure that I did not know anything about ’Second City’? Je suis désolée.  I was not désolée too long, though. I was about to learn about the leading brand in improv-based sketch comedy in the US.

Many of my work colleagues were taking stand-up and improv classes at ‘Second City’ and it was that time where Tina Fey returned to Saturday Night Live to spoof Sarah Palin. The French might know about NBC’s Saturday Night Live, especially if they watch Canal+. Well, Saturday Night live was populated by Second City Alums.

Second City started in 1959 as a theatre cabaret in Chicago and is known as ’the most influential and prolific comedy theatre in the world’. Today, Second City is the premiere comic talent in the industry: from Mike Myers (Wayne’s world) to Steve Carell (The office US), Stephen Colbert (Colbert Report) to Tina Fey (30Rock and Sarah Palin), they all graduated from Second City in Chicago.   

I actually got interested into Stand-up comedy while in Chicago  thanks to my friends Beth and Adonis. In France, there is not much of a stand-up comedy culture, although it has grown under the impulse of TV channel Canal + and humorist Jamel who later created the Jamel’s show on Comedy Central.

So, where would I go in Paris to see good stand-up shows? THEATRE DES 10 HEURES!!!

Théâtre des 10 heures is located in animated Pigalle district, 2 blocks from Moulin Rouge in lower Montmartre. It was started in 1990 under the patronage of Muriel Robin (French female humorist) and launched famous French humorist like Elie et Dieudonné, Patrick Bosso, Franck Dubosc, Omar et Fred, and Jamel Comedy Club. It’s a small venue so everyone is close enough to see the comedians.

I went there with a couple of work colleagues last week, one of them being my fantastic boss Dan who is half-Bristish, and half-Irish. He talked us into Eddie Izzard : ’in England, he is able to fill huge Wembley stadium 11,000 people attending. He is brilliant. He does the show all in French in Paris’. We bought tickets for ‘Stripped’, all en Français- at Théâtre des 10 heures-, ‘which is right across from the Sexodrome and the pharmacies’ as Eddie Izzard would later say during the show. Eddie Izzard wants to do the show in other languages: German, Russian, Arabic and so forth. I support his crazy dream and endeavour!!! He would be the only stand-up comedian to have done this and his multi-lingual performance would end-up in the GUINESS OF RECORDS. Eddie Izzard is a man of word-of-mouth but above all, he is brilliant, genial and charming, so go see him! (please, do not throw sexy lingerie at him while he is performing on stage- yes, that happened that night- awkward and disruptive… it tells you all about Eddie’s charisma and sex appeal…oulala)