A prestigious comedy school, the world’s largest annual laughter festival, and sold-out nightclubs with dozens of weekly shows: in Montreal, comedy is serious business.

Hundreds of comedians regularly ply their trade in this French-speaking city, the main city of the province of Quebec, after the number of local stages showcasing talent has exploded in recent years.

Every imaginable style of stand-up comedy, improv, topical or observational can be found in Montreal, with comedians from trailblazer Tom Green, host of a popular 1990s MTV show, to newbies trying to figure out what works on stage.

The admiring public fills the performance halls in Quebec, where comedy shows are the form of entertainment that attracts the most spectators, ahead of the theater, according to official statistics.

“In Quebec, we take comedy seriously, he assures the AFP comedian Simon Delisle, who has lived off his passion for 12 years.

Hit

At Montreal’s popular Bordel Comédie Club, Charles Deschamps, microphone in hand and against a backdrop of brick wall, delivers one joke after another to a packed house, eliciting laughter and laughter.

Opened in 2015, this comedy cabaret puts on several shows a night, often sold out, said Deschamps, who also co-owns the club.

Given its great success, the cabaret doubled its capacity by opening a second stage last year and expanded its reservations.

“It’s a way to relax,” smiles Manuel St-Aubin, 27, a regular at the club.

At the Brothel, “the laughter is loud, people applaud a lot”, observes the French humorist Certe Mathurin, comparing the expressiveness of the Canadians to that of the more discreet Parisian public.

Mathurin plans to begin his fourth comedy tour in Quebec, which he calls “the Mecca of humor”.

“It’s a pilgrimage for actors: whether you’re French, Swiss, Belgian … you have to go to Quebec because they are at the forefront of French-speaking humor there”, continues the artist of 37 years.

The Just for Laughs festival was created there in 1983.

You can also read: The ‘slow design’ or how to live serenely, the new trend in Milan

build a joke

Before going on stage, many train at the emblematic National School of Humor (ENH) in Montreal.

Founded in 1988, it trains around 30 actors each year, including Roman Frayssinet, who has had enormous success in France, and a model student that Felix Wagner, 27, hopes to imitate.

Inside a curtained classroom, one of Wagner’s classmates rehearses a comedic routine. His teacher, Stephan Allard, told him that he must “work on the material so that it flows better”.

At ENH there are also classes in creativity, improvisation and career management, and each week students must present a new five-minute stand-up routine in class.

Allard says the school helps students identify their funny streak, look for inspiration in their own lives, in the news or in pop culture, and focus on the “funniest” parts on stage.

The program also helps firm up your writing and develop a style, with a “signature” to set you apart from others, he added.

“Going to school allowed me to perform in comedy clubs in Paris, even if they didn’t know me”, like Paname or Frigo, says Virginie Courtiol, a first-grade student who introduces herself as “Beurguy” on stage.

This 34-year-old Frenchwoman jokes about topics such as menstruation and abortion.

It’s feminist humor in line with incisive programs created in recent years, such as the “Womansplaining show”, which aims to “destroy the patriarchy, one joke at a time”.

In the past, this kind of stand-up humor about women’s bodies would have been taboo, but as Deschamps says, “there’s always an evolution.”