Swiss comedian Emil Steinberger, alias “Emil”, is the subject of a documentary which will be released on January 22 in French-speaking Switzerland. In La Matinale de la RTS, he looks back on his career and tells how he started doing sketches in French.
Emil, a timeless icon of Swiss humor, achieved what few have succeeded in doing: bringing together the Swiss around the same sketches, translated into German and French. Guest in La Matinale de la RTS, Emil Steinberger, his full name, said he was the first to be surprised.
“I was warned ‘Emil, don’t do that, we don’t like Swiss Germans who speak French’. And it’s true, when I hear Swiss Germans speaking French on the bus, it’s is disgusting, it’s terrible,” laughs the comedian. “That’s why I was afraid to do it.”
The cameraman started laughing so much that the camera started shaking
In 1983, Lova Golovtchiner, founder of the Théâtre Boulimie in Lausanne, asked him to translate his first sketches into French for television. “The camera was so big! I started playing Corporal Schnyder. And suddenly this camera started shaking. At first I thought it was defective. But no, it was the cameraman who started laughing so much that the camera was no longer quiet. It was proof that I was understood in French-speaking Switzerland”, smiles Emil.
>> Watch the Corporal Schnyder sketch again:
Former postal tobacconist
Aside from the language barrier, the native of Lucerne believes that we laugh at the same things in French-speaking Switzerland and in German-speaking Switzerland. “There is no difference at all. We always look for the differences between the German Swiss and the French-speaking Swiss, but that doesn’t exist. We are the same. Except perhaps in professional life. Maybe be that we work at a different speed in German-speaking Switzerland”, he laughs.
The documentary “Typisch Emil”, which will be released on January 22 in French-speaking Switzerland, retraces the life of the comedian. We learn that humor was far from being obvious to him, especially towards his parents. “It was a little hard at home, because my parents didn’t understand at all what I wanted to do on stage.”
For my parents, working behind the counter was absolutely the most I could do. For them, playing meant doing stupid things
Emil Steinberger was then a postal tobacconist. In 1960, after nine years of service behind the counter, he resigned and began training as a graphic designer to become an advertising designer. He started out in humor as an autodidact and founded the theater “Kleintheater Luzern” at the same time. In the 1970s he launched a one-man show – people then spoke of a cabaret artist. A trajectory that his mother has difficulty accepting.
“She was proud of my job as a tobacconist. For my parents, working behind the counter was absolutely the most I could do. For them, acting was doing stupid things. Even when I was 40, with success in Germany. I could show my mother that it was a real job, but she always said ‘why didn’t you stay at the Post Office, it was simpler?’.”
Emil, who celebrated his 92nd birthday on Monday, does not want to stop yet. “We always have to check whether the brain is still active or not,” laughs the comedian. “But normally it will go well, I will always be able to do shows. The last one was two and a half hours, that’s quite long!”
The documentary “Typisch Emil” can be seen in French-speaking Switzerland from January 22, 2025
Comments collected by Pietro Bugnon
Version web: Antoine Schaub
