‘Life is just one big orgy…’

Lucont opened with: ‘Life is just one big orgy: you are surrounded by pricks, c**ts and a***holes’ – and I could not agree more. My life is not a series of sexcapades, but for those who tire of humans easily, Marcel Lucont is the comedian to see. Lucont was at Warwick Arts Centre for the second time and his show attempted to sophisticate Coventry.

But there is only so much you can take from a French nihilist whose life’s greatest (and base) pleasures are wine, women and smoking. Having first encountered him on Russell Howard’s Good News, his TV appearance just like his UK tour Gallic Symbol is a mission to teach the British about why the French way is the only way. If anything, this self-professed ‘best French comedian in the UK’ is a breath of fresh air to the comedy circuit. The British scene is full of self-deprecation and the occasional American who agrees that our superior wit trumps all. Lucont, on the other hand, opens with a song telling us why he is ‘magnifique’ and proceeds to explain in detail for the next ninety minutes what we are doing wrong.

And he gets away with it.

This is partially because his charisma is based on epitomising the French stereotype of being a polo-neck wearing, wine-swirling, pseudo-philosopher who oozes the bohemian vibe with his bare feet. Indeed, how can we make a joke out of him when he sees nothing wrong with the image we have of the French? He goes from guffawing at our cuisine and fashion – to making insightful statements on why relationships and children constrain our free will. Lucont’s act is composed of erotic poetry; narrations from his unfinished autobiography; a live Twitter Q&A session; and bawdy songs. As much as his lascivious ways made me flinch (especially after an uncomfortable rendition of ‘Continental Breast-fest’), the audience were holding onto every word of the Gospel according to Lucont.

Despite trying not to boost his already inflated ego, I have to confess that he is magnetic. Although some, like the one female audience member who claimed that Lucont was ‘sexier’ than her fiancé of two and a half years – would say he was attractive in the physical sense. But his magnetism draws from how his accent and annoying pauses to ‘appreciate’ the joke of British wine, adds gravitas to the atomistic mantra he peddles.

But the main reason why Lucont gets away with his British-bashing is not because he is a sexy Gallic symbol. No, the main reason is because, as he rightly states: we paid to. And having done so, I believe that he is the French loveable rogue you must see. He definitely put the Paris in our ‘Paris of the Midlands’ (that’s Coventry, if you didn’t already know). So we were left enriched, and he definitely richer.