Tania Dutel, raw humour

by Iris Bronner

You’ve just started polishing up your new set. What’s it about?

It’s a continuation of things I was doing before: there are a lot of personal anecdotes to allow people to identify with it as much as possible. That’s what makes me laugh hardest when I see stand-up as an audience member. For example, I talk about having had scabies before beginning the show. I also speak about honesty and the female body; things that we sometimes learn about late on. I’m not into political humour.

© Patrick Fouque

In your previous shows, you talked about sexuality, former boyfriends and highly personal subjects. Why do you lay yourself so bare?

In my previous show, when I talked about white discharge, I could see that it really bothered some people. Some topics are so taboo that they can create feelings of unease, which was the case for me before. But in the end, I think if we all spoke more freely, things would be better. Actually, in some people’s minds, talking about sexuality means having orgies all day long, which is so far from the truth: we just want more transparency. As long as these topics are taboo, I’ll keep on talking about them.

On stage, people sometimes say that you’re very direct, even crude. Is the stage version of Tania Dutel the same as the real-life version?

It’s the same person. And that’s exactly what I mean when I talk about honesty: I don’t understand why we have to be so prudish about certain subjects. Let’s get straight to the point. Whether it’s the attitudes or the stories, nothing is fabricated in my show, even though it’s obviously been written and whittled down. Whenever an experience comes to mind, I make a note of it on my phone, I play it out at the comedy club to see if it works and, if it does, I work on it.

"I think if we all spoke more freely, things would be better"

You’ve had a weekly spot on the ‘Zoom Zoom Zen’ radio programme on France Inter since 2022. How is that different to the stage?

On France Inter, they give me a topic to cover, often the day before. When people come to see my show, 85% of the jokes have already been tested. I can use more acting and body language on stage. On the radio, it’s trickier. The spot is an unrehearsed performance and we don’t know if it’s going to work or not, as it has to be conveyed through the voice alone.

How did you get into stand-up?

In 2008, I left the Beaujolais region to study audiovisual media in Paris. One day, a girl in my class asked me if I wanted to watch Mustapha El Atrassi perform at Théâtre le Temple. As I was watching, I thought “that’s what I want to do!” The next day, I started working alone. I started writing. Not so much stand-up, but kind of absurd humour. Then I began performing at an open mic night at the Chinchman Comedy Club. Back then, loads of people were performing there: Guillaume Meurice, Baptiste Lecaplin, Gaspard Proust, to name but a few... But I struggled for years. I did odd jobs, entertainment on trains, training in supermarkets, birthday party acts and so on. It was terrible! I
only started making a living from it in 2016, when I started doing stand-up and said to myself “stop worrying that your parents are going to come and watch you.” [Laughs]

You were already doing theatre in your home region of Beaujolais at the age of 7…

Yes, it was in the village where I grew up, near Villefranche-sur-Saône. A girlfriend said to me “you should do it,” so I started the next year! It seems like I’m easily talked into doing things. I remember
that I was the only girl who played male roles. I played old men; perhaps not suitable for kids but I liked it. I continued doing it into secondary school. We would write plays and then perform them at the end of the year.

Did you have a happy childhood in Villefranche?

I have lots of good memories. Every 8th of December, we would paint glass yoghurt pots to make lumignons [Translator’s note: small lanterns traditionally displayed for the Festival of Lights] to put on the window sills. I actually thought that everybody did it in France, but when I arrived in Paris, aged 19, I realised that wasn’t the case at all. It really is a local thing!

Do you go back often?

Three or four times a year. I enjoy my family and nature. That’s what I miss most in Paris. I grew up in the countryside, riding a bike or playing in the fields, so we often go on walks when I come back. We’re not far from the village of Oingt, a really beautiful place well worth a visit. And there’s the Château de Montmelas. I could see it from my bedroom window when I was a kid. Some of the TV series Kaamelott was actually filmed there.

"I love walking through the traboules"

You also lived in Lyon for a year. What is your relationship with the city?

I spent a year at CEFAM business school on the Upil René-Cassin campus. But I wasn’t living in Lyon proper and I worked at the Buffalo Grill in Villefranche-sur-Saône on weekends. I used to go out a bit, sometimes to the nightclubs on the banks of the Saône. When I go to Lyon now, it’s not for the nightlife. I mostly go to Vieux-Lyon because I love historic quarters, they’re so beautiful. I love walking through the traboules [Translator’s note: hidden passageways through buildings linking streets]. I recently took a friend to visit Fourvière, and I still love the ride up on the funicular.

Would you have liked to do more live shows in Lyon?

When I started doing live shows, more than ten years ago, I went back to live with my parents in Villefranche for a few months. I wanted to perform in Lyon, but there wasn’t much happening and I didn’t know enough people there to go to the comedy clubs. I think it was too early then. Today, I get the feeling that the scene is growing steadily. I love comedy clubs because the atmosphere is different. People don’t come to see a big name, so it’s not the same kind of audience. I already perform fairly regularly at clubs in places like Marseille, Geneva and Brussels.
I think I’ll do a little tour of the clubs in Lyon soon…

© Patrick Fouque

Biography

Tania Dutel was born in 1989 in Villefranche-sur-Saône, 30 kilometres from Lyon. Even as a child, the brunette enjoyed clowning around at the drama workshop in her village, where she spent her first 18 years.
Aged 19, following a stopover in Lyon, Tania moved to Paris. This is where she discovered the world of stand-up and comedy clubs. Known for her unfiltered expressiveness, she has developed a style that’s all her own, filled with intimate, humiliating and/or dramatic stories, delivered with charming self-derision. Ranging from sexuality to her personal life and failed romances, some of her jokes are already classics.
As a rising star on the stand-up scene, in 2019, she was chosen by Netflix, along with three other comics, to represent French stand-up in Comedians of the World. The same year, she performed her show in Montréal, at the world’s largest francophone comedy festival: Juste pour rire (Just For Laughs).
In 2022, she began touring her second show, Les Autres (Other People), and joined Matthieu Noël’s radio programme Zoom Zoom Zen on France Inter, with the weekly spot ‘Moi ce que j’en dis’ (my two cents)..
Now polishing her third show (which is yet to be named at the time of writing), Tania Dutel will be returning to her home region on the 20th and 21st of February 2025, to perform live at the venue Paul Garcin in Lyon’s 1st district.

Tania's address book