Comedian Marie Iturralde brings “stand up” to Troyes in her Fou du roi Comedy club

In stand-up, where the comedian tells stories close to everyday life or even often inspired by his own life, everything makes the public think that there is a large part of improvisation, from the interaction with the spectators to the stripped-down staging. An impression which above all hides years of work to perfect the quality of the text, the presence on stage and the authenticity. The path of comedian Marie Iturralde, from Ile-de-France by birth but from Auboise by adoption, now crosses that of the inhabitants of Troyes at least once a month. She has just created her Fou du Roi Comedy Club within the BHV, a bistro in the city center where she hosts an evening dedicated to stand-up every month, with the promise of discovering gems of the genre.

If the young thirty-year-old always liked to make her family laugh during her childhood years in Yonne, it was at sports school in Dijon (Côte d’Or) that it clicked in 2016: “I I have a friend who signed me up for a comedy competition in Dijon, where I was selected for a kind of troupe, and I started playing in cellars in the city. My mother wondered, anxiously, if these were really jokes that I was going to make… Obviously, I answered yes! », she remembers, amused. Marie quickly got into the game of performing. As soon as she finished her studies, she moved to Troyes where she continued to perform on stage, notably taking advantage of the creation of Troyes Fois Plus in 2017, a small performance hall which organized open stages for young talents. “Where I learned the most,” she assures.

An hour and a quarter with experienced comedians

From her multiple meetings to opportunities for more important stages, the idea of ​​really making it her job grew over the months, until she gave up her job as a supervisor at the Jacobins college in Troyes in 2023. “I did scenes where I said to myself: Never again do I want to go below what I’ve already done “. With the opening acts of Laurie Peret, Gérémy Crédeville, Az, Nordine Ganso, Manu Payet or even recently Malik Bentalha (“with whom I could continue a little bit in France”), Marie Iturralde learns and questions herself every evening. “It’s a nice CV all the same,” she relishes.

Enough to help her consolidate her own show which she has performed several times in the Trojan area, and which she continues to refine over the course of the performances. Because if writing is one thing, making the audience laugh is another. “It’s not easy, you also have to think about what others will like or not. But I found that self-deprecation still worked quite well. So I talk about a lot of things that happened to me. As soon as there is authenticity, it is easier to make people laugh. »

Her ambition and desire to surpass herself led her to Paris. Marie Iturralde sometimes does a few rooms there and seizes the opportunities to learn, notably through a master class that she followed at the Fridge Comedy Club, the place dedicated to stand-up created by Kev Adams in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris. A great opportunity to share the experience of the owner as well as Gad Elmaleh, present during this improvement sequence. “I had remembered a phrase from Kev Adams who said that when we ran, we were often looking at what was happening around us… and that’s not necessarily good because when we’re running a race, if we look at the others run, they risk crossing the finish line before us.

“Troyes is not just andouillette, Estac or chaource”

From this life lesson, Marie retains the competitive spirit that reigns in the industry. “I think stand-up is cooler when you’re a group and you’re together. It’s really not easy to be on stage, I still don’t have confidence in myself and probably not tomorrow either… But it’s a very good exercise to overcome the fear of speaking in public, and to be able to pass full of stages of life… I no longer manage situations the way I handled them before. »

“Once a month, I invite three comedians, I present each time by making a few little jokes… and then the evening takes place for an hour and a quarter with fairly experienced comedians all the same,” she explains. Guests from his address book and his meetings across France, from Paris to Bordeaux via Strasbourg. “It also allows me to bring them to Troyes… I find it cool to make the city known through things other than andouillette, Estac (the football club Editor’s note) and chaource (a cheese)! “. Next session on Thursday October 31.