“I can make people laugh with jokes other than self-deprecation”: Paul Mirabel, the dazzlingly successful comedian who has just started his second show, wants to get rid of his “fragile” persona in order to explore a comedy of “adult”.
Met by AFP, the 28-year-old artist, long blond hair, round glasses, pink sweater, confides between two performances of his one man show “Par amour”, performed at the Théâtre des Variétés in Paris until the end of December . Before embarking on a tour of large venues until spring 2026, more than 200 dates in France, Belgium and Switzerland, many of which are already “sold out”.
Deadpan, Paul Mirabel became known in 2020 at the Montreux Festival, in Switzerland, for his sketch “Je me suis fait racketter” (27 million views on YouTube) and for his first show, “Zèbre” , highlighting his character as a modest boy, self-conscious about his body and his shyness.
With effective comedy based on slow phrasing and silences, giving it a lunar side.
But we are “no longer the same person at 28 as at 22”, he says, admitting to having become “an adult”. The stand-up with two million subscribers on Instagram and 2.3 million on TikTok explores, in “Par amour”, a moment in his love life, recounts his notoriety and reveals his existential anxieties by exposing himself more.
“It was important to highlight a little more the fact that I was not confined to a single character”, “shy and sickly”, “fragile and immobile, who is victimized”, he believes. On stage, the flow accelerates, there are more exchanges and improvisations with the audience.
“I have a sketch that I am super proud of on feminism, for example. I never thought I could make people laugh on a serious subject.” “It reassured me that I didn't have to hide behind self-deprecating jokes to make people laugh.”
– “Not a little sigh from the nose” –
When asked to analyze the recipe for his success, Paul Mirabel, who is preparing to “move” from the show presented by Nagui on France Inter to the morning show with occasional mood posts, replies: “I try to put in the work, to cultivate originality, which comes down to being yourself. I'm not trying to give myself the right role, I'm just telling things that I want to tell.
He who preferred humor to business studies says he went through “every possible and imaginable scene”, from the shisha bar to small provincial stages where he only played seven to eight minutes in the evening. Having also experienced a moment of “violent failure”, having left everything fallow for a few quarters abroad, before returning to the stage.
Now, he designs his sketches on his phone, a small notebook or his computer. “We write things, we practice doing them in small ‘comedy clubs’, we see what works and what doesn’t.”
“My requirement is that it has to laugh and it has to laugh well. Not a little smile or a little pinch, not a little sigh from the nose. I don’t keep that,” he assures.
And during his tour, he allows himself to “change little notes from time to time, like a musical score”.
His mentors? Gad Elmaleh, Jamel Debbouze and Florence Foresti.
Every time he goes on stage, Paul Mirabel feels “a mixture of overconcentration, excitement and stress”, but “not the stress that paralyzes you”.
On the other hand, “I still have shyness, I don’t feel like it can be cured,” he confides.
The young man has “other artistic projects”: writing “films, series”. “I would like to move towards that. It’s in the back of my mind.”
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