First International Comedy Festival in Antwerp

First names : JACK DEE - STEPHEN MERCHANT - HANS TEEUWEN & The Painkillers

Thursday, April 10, 2014 — Live Comedy Festival is an international comedy festival, that from September 26th, for a couple of weeks, will take place in 4 theaters in Antwerp. The first names have been announced today: STEPHEN MERCHANT, JACK DEE and HANS TEEUWEN & The Painkillers (NL) In the following weeks, more names will be announced. Live comedy .be, founded by Tom Bertels, is a comedy promoter of Flemish, Dutch and English comedy events in Belgium. Why the need for this festival? A lot of big cities in the world have their own comedy festival. In Flanders that is not yet the case and we would like to change that. The focus lies on international comedy, but you can also see Flemish and Dutch stand-up comedians. The Flemish people are ready to go to comedy events in English. A lot of Flemish people can understand English and have already discovered comedy in English via YouTube and television. There are also people with different nationalities who live here or who spend their holiday in Flanders and speak English as a second or third language. A lot of them also really like comedy, so they will be very excited to hear about this. English comedians feel the need to tour around the world. They are ready to conquer Europe. Jack Dee / 15 October / Stadsschouwburg Antwerp Jack Dee won his first British Comedy Award in 1991. The popular comedy show Live at the Apollo was named ‘Jack Dee at the Apollo’ for the first two seasons because Jack was always the host. He’s known for his dry humor. Stephen Merchant / 20 October / Stadsschouwburg Antwerp Stephen got famous as the co-writer and co-director of the award winning sitcom called The Office, starring Ricky Gervais. But it wasn’t until 2011 that Merchant was onstage as a solo stand-up comedian. He was doing big venues in the UK, USA and Australia and he said about this: “The reason why I am alone on stage now is because now I finally don’t have to share something with ‘you-know-who’.”  Hans Teeuwen / 26 September / Arenberg Antwerp Hans Teeuwen is a phenomenon. He’s a really popular comedian in the Netherlands and Flanders. He decided to stop doing comedy in 2004, but after a break of seven years he decided to hit the stage again, but with very few shows. On the Live Comedy Festival Hans Teeuwen will perform in Dutch with his band The Painkillers. Live Comedy festival is part of Comedy Fest Europe Comedy Fest Europe is a new co-operation between some of Europe’s leading live Comedy promoters. Together, the aim is to get the biggest and most exciting names in comedy to tour Europe as well as to create a stage for the young and aspiring comedians that deserves a chance to show themselves in Europe. Today we announce festivals in Antwerp, Oslo, Reykjavik and Trondheim. We’ll soon add more cities to the comedy mayhem that will make sure that a gloomy October really equals a hilarious string of unforgettable laughs for most Europeans. The ticket sale starts on 23 April at 10 o’clock AM. For more information, please visit http://www.livecomedyfestival.be/ Press: Tom Bertels [email protected] 0032 475 66 55 49