Travel Reference
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'This is Paris,' she said, unimpressed. 'People don't drink here.'
I must have looked a little dubious at this statement. I know big-city expats and in my ex-
perience they're very rarely ever sober!
'I have an idea, though,' she continued and leaned in conspiratorially. 'We'll secretly film all
the comedians and sell the footage to mobile phone companies.'
Illegally filming and selling my colleagues' intellectual property to communications giants
was one of the most insane ideas I had ever heard and I gave my thanks for her time and
left her to her mad, swivel-eyed view of the world. What about an English 'pub' in Paris, I
thought? There are lots of those. One in the Pigalle district gave me the go ahead, but then
said if any other client wanted the function room for that night, they could have it and it didn't
matter how much notice she gave!
'Let me get this straight,' I said, not quite believing my ears, 'I will have booked three top
comedians, brought them to Paris and found them a hotel. Sold potentially 300 tickets and
even on the afternoon of the show itself you can cancel me?'
'Yes,' she said. 'Deal?'
Another even less keen on the idea said I could rent his place for €20,000 a night.
'Great!' I said, 'I'll be along with the money just as soon as I find somewhere to land my
GOLDEN BLOODY HELICOPTER!'
The Anglo-French Chamber of Commerce gave me a list of people who might be able to
help - events managers, PR firms and the like; no psychiatrists, though, which would have
been distinctly more useful.
Julia and Pete ran a PR company that had fallen on hard times and they were struggling but
thought that standup comedy might be their salvation.
'Forget about Paris,' they said, 'there's too many rules there, it's too difficult. Come and try
down here.'
'Down here' was the Deux-Sevres region, but close enough to Cognac and the Dordogne to
programme a three-night run there. 'Is there enough of an audience to make it work, do you
think?'
'Oh yes,' they said, 'easily.' It was what I wanted to hear frankly and I let that get the better
of my, let's be honest, pretty weak business sense.
Maybe expats in France are a different breed. There's always the possibility that they don't
crave 'English entertainment' the way expats further afield do and that's to be admired really;
they certainly weren't that fussed about stand-up! My role was to help with advertising, book
the comedians, their travel and hotels, MC every show, drive everyone around and stump up
most of the money. Julia and Pete's job was to make sure the venues were ready and obvi-
ously do most of the PR.
'I take it you've spoken to the expat business associations in Dordogne, have you?' I sugges-
ted on the phone one day when Julia hinted that ticket sales were a bit 'sluggish'.
