Merwane Benlazar is 27 years old.
For 11 years, he has been on the boards of comedy clubs and his laughter makes the walls tremble.
Merwane laughs as much as he makes people laugh.
It's thundering, communicative and terribly pleasant.
He is on stage as in his living room, and the time of an evening, the public becomes friends to whom he entrusts the least of his thoughts.
A funny storyteller
After opening for Panayotis Pascot, Gad Elmaleh or Seb Melia, Merwane Benlazar decides to have his name on the bill.
His show, he speaks of it as a jewel: “I didn't want it to look like a series of sketches.
I wanted there to be a skeleton, a message;
that we feel that the reflection of the beginning of the show evolves until the end.
The spectator must grow up as I grew up writing it.
".
For the first time
was written during his time in comedy clubs.
“At the beginning, you have 5 funny minutes, then 10, then 15… And you end up having 1 hour”.
Stand up is a game for him.
He writes and rewrites constantly, so that his show is always in his image.
Merwane Benlazar insists: he has matured.
“Before, laughter was what I had and I built around that laughter.
Now, you have to tell something and laughter is the constraint.
".
Merwane Benlazar is above all a storyteller.
In one hour, he unpacks dozens of stories: his boxing lessons with completely crazy toothless coaches, his old neighbors who spy on him, the people who stare at him in the street because of his new beard... don't see the time passing.
“I am comfortable with the public gaze”
Like Kheiron, one of these mentors, Merwane Benlazar does not hesitate to take the spectators to task.
When he asks someone if he's a waiter and he replies “no, I'm a barista”, he bursts out laughing and replies “And I'm a playwright.
".
He can't stop talking to people.
“They surprise me.
They are funny most of the time.
Sometimes I say to myself: I hadn't thought of it, even though it's my job!
".
He has as much fun as the public.
His improvisations punctuate the show brilliantly.
He builds a relationship of trust, he brings everyone into his playground. “The job is to make the path easy between what I find funny and what makes the public laugh.
It's like that in my head and I want people to feel the same and it goes or that….
past !
".
“I'm comfortable with the public gaze.
Besides, I prefer that there is an audience!
As long as people come, everything is fine!
".
He laughs, and his cheekbones, already high, lift.
He often stops to observe the room.
“I have no limits, it depends on how people distract me.
I remained the kid in class who can't help but watch the flies fly.
".
Respect, perhaps, is its limit.
Never gratuitous attacks: he laughs with and never at the public.
Raising awareness through laughter
Merwane Benlazar sees laughter as a form of pedagogy.
He would like each spectator, on returning home, to be a little more sensitive to the racism he experiences on a daily basis.
He talks about the misunderstanding of others and the xenophobia that inhabit our society today.
But he knew how to find the right tone, since it's only when you leave the room that you start thinking about it.
It provokes laughter spontaneously, but delayed thinking.
“I don't want to place myself as a victim.
What I'm going through, it's not serious, it's not sad, but it shouldn't happen, that's all.
And most of the time, I find it funny.
".
He plays down effortlessly, always with a smile on his face.
“For the first time” at Grand Point Virgule on March 19
With his microphone held at his fingertips, his look of a delighted child and his "You see what I want to say or not" launched all the time, Merwane Benlazar convinced us.
Introduced by Nathan Bensoussan, an equally promising first part, the comedian confides "I still have a lot of boxes to check before being 100% proud of myself".
In the meantime, we are easily satisfied with this box checked properly: "For the first time" at Grand Point Virgule on March 19.
Spectacle
Humor
Culture
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