Laughing with the locals

18 Octobre 2014

Imagine yourself in a foreign town. You don't know anybody. You don't know anything about the place. How do you get a feel for the town?

Last weekend I went to Toulouse for the first time. Prior to going there I had been here and there on the Internet and had decided that Saturday evening I would go to a stand-up comedy. I thought that I might get an insight to the life of the Toulousains if I could hear what they were laughring about.

Saturday nght at Le Citron Bleu in a basement with arched red brick walls and a dimmed light I was the fly on the wall because I was not only there to listen to Sofiane, the comedian, but also to observe the audience. As I arrived early (just cannot help it) I had plenty of time to look at people who were having dinner at this café théâtre. Whilst sipping my glass of wine I enjoyed the show......

There was a very serious looking couple holding hands whilst talking. At no stage did they smile, but in view of his very concentrated look at her and her sexy top my guess is that they were still in the early stages of dating. Why would he otherwise actually pay attention to what she was saying? I was concerned when she let him look at her mobile phone whilst she went to the toilets; this is not the moment that you want the new guy to snoop around on your phone, is it? There was another couple on a date. I could not see the man's face, but the woman was smiling all the time, and they were holding hands between the main course and the dessert. His hair was wild and unkempt, and though he seemed more reserved and leaning back in his chair (perhaps to create some distance?), my guess is that this was also a couple in the making.

Just before the show was due to start a young woman came in with her parents. They had booked their tickets on Groupon and had thought that the offer of two tickets and champagne for €29 included dinner. The unhealthy looking father was upset when he discovered that he would have to pay extra for his dinner, and they were discussing if they could go somewhere else after the show to have dinner. The girl went upstairs to check the offer on her mobile phone, and in the end the father negotiated with the waitress who was not keen on serving food just before the show started. They finally agreed that he would have a steak whilst the girl and her mother had their champagne. What caught my attention was the look of almost panic on the father's face when he realised that he might have to wait for dinner. Needless to say that he was overweight and looked more like somebody who ought to skip dinner....

Then entered Sofiane, whom I had crossed at the entrance where he was sitting with a woman wearing a head scalf. As he seemed a bit restless, I had asked him if he was nervous, and the whole situation seemed rather intimate and down to earth. Once he was on scene and his wife or sister or friend was sitting at a table in the audience, Sofiane became a muslim bus driver from Clermont Ferrand. I was a little disappointed that he was not from Toulouse, and I think it was a handicap in his show. People want to laugh about themselves or situations that they recognise, but how can you identify with a Morroccan busdriver from Clermont Ferrand?

Everybody had sympathy for this little, fat man who was living his dream (I suppose) of standing on a scene, so there were laughs and some interaction, too. I took two things with me from the show: a supermarket bag is called a poche (pocket) in the South West of France, and a pain au chocolat is called a chocolatine. Thus if somebody asks you if they should put the kettle you just bought in a pocket, you should not get worried. The next morning when I was standing in the bakery, I had already forgotten the lesson from the previous night and ordered a pain au chocolat. The women at the counter asked me to repeat, and then she said, "chocolatine, €1.20" with a smile in the corner of her mouth.