“French It Up est LE comedy club français à Londres. Lancé en 2016 par Jeff Vitale, depuis rejoint par Fabrice Edouard Laroche Francoeur, le concept séduit un public francophone de plus en plus large et fait émerger une nouvelle scène d'humoristes français à Londres.”

After introducing London’s Comedy show in the Spanish language Comedy Por Favor in episode 19, we turn our attention in this episode to London’s French comedy club “French It Up”, whose shows currently rotate between the trendy Exmouth Market in Clerkenwell and nestled next to the beer garden in Vauxhall. The mastermind behind this, Jeff Vitale, talks about the specific “expat humour” and makes a careful distinction between French speakers and French expats, as a good percentage of the audience also comes from other francophone countries. He shares how he has grown and plans to continue to grow this comedy club from strength to strength in this English city that boasts enough French citizen to be France’s fifth or sixth largest city.

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00:51 Intro

02:39 An episode about a comedy show in a foreign language

04:47 French It Up audience’s specific sense of humour (expat Francophones)

07:36 Work office observations as popular joke materials

09:52 French speaking audience does not equal French people

11:58 Reasons for stopping bilingual French/English shows

15:51 Comedy materials about migration and cross cultural differences

17:00 Doubters and continuing to attract non comedy fans

19:48 Why French It Up was set up

22:57 “Intermittents du spectacle” - French government support for actors

24:38 More efforts into organising and promoting shows post Covid

27:15 Cross over with English stand up scene? French It Up’s own eco-system of performers

30:18 Not to be confused as a show in English (but talking about France)

30:53 Where the show name “French It Up” comes from

32:00 Jeff speaks too fast for non native French speakers to understand

33:04 How fluent one’s French has to be to go to a French It Up show?

35:18 The French language’s fluidity and rythmn

38:59 French It Up being a relief for nostalgia?

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Podcast intro music by @Taigenkawabe