"Humour is humour, and it is not national. The references are national; the humour is international.” - Eddie Izzard
ABOUT FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL DE COMEDIA DE BARCELONA
Sasa Salvaggio (IT) speaking to Italian press 2010
Festival Internacional de comedia began life first with Barcelona Comedy Festival, the first and still the only multilingual comedy festival in the world a Project belonging to ComedyinSpain who created and pioneered the very first professional English language comedy show in Spain back in 2003.
In 2005, the Giggling Guiri was established offering world class monthly comedy nights in both Madrid and Barcelona until June 2012, when it was regrettably closed, another 'victim of austerity’. The GG in its time became legendary as one of Europe´s very best comedy clubs bringing the biggest International comedy stars to Spain, often to small intimate venues in both cities. From Arj Barker to Michael Mc Intyre to Ardal O Hanlon and 4 Edinburgh award winning shows in the year they won!! The line up over those years represents a who’s who of comedy during that period.
Over the years ComedyinSpain established itself as the biggest providers of live comedy products in various languages on the Iberian peninsula presenting 100’s of shows to public, many corporate events, and even programming for a period for Ibiza Rocks and FIBER rock festival in Benicassim.
While the festival domains have been registered since 2003 it wasn´t until 2007 that we began to look seriously at the festival concept as the local industry began to get to where it needed to be. Comedyinspain established an initial 3 year plan to trial the previously untested idea of a multilingual comedy festival in Barcelona and try to find the best and most sustainable model.
In 2005, the Giggling Guiri was established offering world class monthly comedy nights in both Madrid and Barcelona until June 2012, when it was regrettably closed, another 'victim of austerity’. The GG in its time became legendary as one of Europe´s very best comedy clubs bringing the biggest International comedy stars to Spain, often to small intimate venues in both cities. From Arj Barker to Michael Mc Intyre to Ardal O Hanlon and 4 Edinburgh award winning shows in the year they won!! The line up over those years represents a who’s who of comedy during that period.
Over the years ComedyinSpain established itself as the biggest providers of live comedy products in various languages on the Iberian peninsula presenting 100’s of shows to public, many corporate events, and even programming for a period for Ibiza Rocks and FIBER rock festival in Benicassim.
While the festival domains have been registered since 2003 it wasn´t until 2007 that we began to look seriously at the festival concept as the local industry began to get to where it needed to be. Comedyinspain established an initial 3 year plan to trial the previously untested idea of a multilingual comedy festival in Barcelona and try to find the best and most sustainable model.
Originally on dates in November, it had its official international launch at the Edinburgh Fringe festival HQ, which was accompanied alongside the only ‘made in Spain’ English Stand Up show,
¿Qué?- Four comics Juan Vision, to grace the Fringe in 2009.
While the early editions worked well enough it was felt that after the initial 3 year plan it was best to move the dates to a more tourist friendly period of the year. Since 2011 we tried these new dates and for the next 3 seasons but with the unrelenting expanse of the Spanish High Season and the shock of a series of a few austerity budgets and their negative assault on cultural events in Spain... it was decided that all the reasons that made the original November dates the right ones were still totally valid and so FIC BCN returned to November to be followed
¿Qué?- Four comics Juan Vision, to grace the Fringe in 2009.
While the early editions worked well enough it was felt that after the initial 3 year plan it was best to move the dates to a more tourist friendly period of the year. Since 2011 we tried these new dates and for the next 3 seasons but with the unrelenting expanse of the Spanish High Season and the shock of a series of a few austerity budgets and their negative assault on cultural events in Spain... it was decided that all the reasons that made the original November dates the right ones were still totally valid and so FIC BCN returned to November to be followed
In 2017 FIC hosted the ultimate multilingual comedy festival headliner when the absolute king of live comedy over 41 shows in small venues through Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia from November 2017 culminating in a full performance of his globe-trotting tour of Force Majeure in Madrid in February 2018 entirely in Spanish!!
The project which began way back in 2014 was produced entirely by ComedyinSpain and will be the 4th language that Eddie has now performed the show... English, French, German and Spanish!!!
The project which began way back in 2014 was produced entirely by ComedyinSpain and will be the 4th language that Eddie has now performed the show... English, French, German and Spanish!!!
Adam Hills & Jason Byrne on stage together 2009 - a monster performance
Festival Internacional de Comedia has had NO PUBLIC FUNDING, NO MAJOR SPONSOR to date!!! but has survived and developed mainly because the public have readily engaged with it, want it and have paid to view the quality entertainment that we have provided.
Since 2008 FIC have presented tier 1 comedy shows in English, Castellano, Catalan, Dutch, Swedish, Italian, German, Russian, mime and clown. The world´s premier comedy workshop with Logan Murray did so much to light the spark in many of the comics still populating the city's vibrant amateur comedy scenes in both Barcelona and Madrid.
In 2012 we added the biggest success story to date an amateur English language comedy competition called 'Funniest FICer'. In 2013 it was expanded to Madrid to produce a bona fide Spanish National Stand Up comedy champion
Since 2008 FIC have presented tier 1 comedy shows in English, Castellano, Catalan, Dutch, Swedish, Italian, German, Russian, mime and clown. The world´s premier comedy workshop with Logan Murray did so much to light the spark in many of the comics still populating the city's vibrant amateur comedy scenes in both Barcelona and Madrid.
In 2012 we added the biggest success story to date an amateur English language comedy competition called 'Funniest FICer'. In 2013 it was expanded to Madrid to produce a bona fide Spanish National Stand Up comedy champion
Our English Gala show has hosted proper masters of international comedy from Danny Bhoy (SCOT), Jason Byrne (IRE), Adam Hills (AUS), Andrew Maxwell (IRE), Rich Hall (US), Des Bishop (US), Dylan Moran (IRE), Eddie Izzard (UK) and the next superstar of comedy Daniel Sloss.
Others too numerous to mention would have sadly included the now departed cult icon that is Howard Marks (WAL) and the great Sean Hughes.
As we expanded other projects bringing comedy to Madrid, Valencia and the Costa Del Sol have been housed under one banner www.festivaldecomedia.com we become more attractive to the megastars of comedy and we look forward to bringing these entertainers to Southern Europe
Others too numerous to mention would have sadly included the now departed cult icon that is Howard Marks (WAL) and the great Sean Hughes.
As we expanded other projects bringing comedy to Madrid, Valencia and the Costa Del Sol have been housed under one banner www.festivaldecomedia.com we become more attractive to the megastars of comedy and we look forward to bringing these entertainers to Southern Europe
Over the years the World's only multilingual festival has presented shows in English, Castellano, Catalan, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, French, German, and Russian.
Sasa Salvaggio (Italy) created a docummentary of his festival visit |
Russian Comic Nikolay Lukinsky captured for Barcelona's own Russian TV
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