From 9 to 12 April, the resort of Les Deux Alpes will be launching the very first edition of the Festival 2 l'Humour des 2 Alpes, A new nationwide event combining altitude, stand-up and free access for all. Sponsored by Camille Chamoux and Vincent Dedienne, the festival aims to be popular, demanding and resolutely open.
Created by the resort of Les Deux Alpes and produced by Black Dynamite, part of the Mediawan group, this unique event will take over the resort for four days at the heart of the spring season.
It's a strategic time of year, when the snow is still deep and the days are getting longer, providing an ideal opportunity to combine skiing, relaxation and live performances. The ambition is clear: to offer a free festival, accessible to all audiences, and to establish a new cultural landmark in the mountain calendar.
Camille Chamoux and Vincent Dedienne, key figures on the French comedy scene, will set the tone for this first edition. As the festival's godmothers and godfathers, they will embody the spirit of this new event, with its fine writing, self-mockery and sensitive look at the contemporary world.
Both will be taking to the stage to present their shows as part of the festival, offering audiences free performances - a rarity for artists of this calibre.
Camille Chamoux will present her new show Ça va, ça va on Friday 10 April. An intimate and biting creation in which the comedian explores with humour and lucidity questions of health, the body, fragility and the relationship with time, without ever renouncing self-mockery.
Vincent Dedienne headlines
The following day, Saturday 11 April, Vincent Dedienne will present The day after the gala, A hybrid show mixing stand-up and songs, halfway between a concert and a one-man show, true to his singular and hard-to-categorise universe.
In addition to these headliners, the festival aims to bring out new talent and multiply the forms of comedic expression. Stand-up shows, performances in unusual locations, artistic encounters and short formats will punctuate the four days in different areas of the resort.
The idea is to get comedy out of the traditional theatres and into the Alpine landscape, as close to the public as possible. For Les Deux Alpes, this festival is part of a wider strategy to establish the resort as a lively destination well beyond the strict winter season.
With a ski area culminating at 3,600 metres and easy access to the peaks thanks to the Jandri cable car, the resort boasts an activity spread over nine months of the year. The Festival 2 l'Humour completes an already rich offering, combining sport, culture and conviviality in a resolutely intergenerational spirit.
The first comedy festival to be held at such a high altitude in Europe, this new event could well become one of the highlights of spring in the mountains.