Even if you happened to be the generous type and invited me to dinner at a venue that boasted a tasty but limited menu and tables that are jammed so close together you might think they are conjoined, I wouldn’t exactly bite your hand off—i would rather be strapped to the outside of the space shuttle. Normally…
Because a regular dining experience is not what the Kings of Comedy Club is all about—you could say it has a few jokers up its sleeve. The burger and steak we had were juicy (and i liked the frites), the house red La Clausade complemented our meaty preferences perfectly and service was quick and friendly. As for the tables, well, they are tightly packed for that old-fashioned thing called intimacy—no, not for some awful speed-dating session, more for the warmth one gets from the proximity of your neighbours for an evening of fine comedy.
The night myself and a fellow hack bowled along it was the turn of Les Sauveurs to tickle our ribs. It’s an all-male comedy fivesome: Fred Jannin, Stefan Liberski, Sergio Honorez, Gilles Dal and Juan d’Oultremont (Jannin, Liberski and Honorez were once members of Les Snuls, the self-mocking Belgian comedy group from the early 90s). That evening they were recording “capsules”, little comedy slots to be aired on Radio Nostalgie. It was all generally of a very high standard, especially Honorez’ clever, timely piece on the 60 kilos that Bart De Wever has recently lost (by means it appears of a US product banned from Belgian shores) on his way to taking over Antwerp—he spotted a young woman weighing just that: “De Wever’s lost you!”
It is a high-ceilinged modern conversion close to the Ixelles cemetery and yet it has the cosiness of a new York night bar—the dead giveaway that we are in Brussels is the mur-en-brique wall behind the performers, which it so happens is ideal for the recording of sound. Listen out on Nostalgie and you may just about hear the sound of us guffawing at Liberski’s dubious tale about the magic pond and the man with four testicles—but that’s a story for another day.
