Arnaud Tsedri[1] (born 11 March 1975),[2] better known by the stage nameArnaud Tsamere[a] (French:[aʁnotsamɛʁ]), is a French comedian, actor, television presenter and sports journalist. Born in Bordeaux and raised in the Yvelines, he joined the Déclic Théâtre group after quitting his sales job. There, he acted in plays and participated in improvisation events. He wrote his first one-man show, Réflexions profondes sur pas mal de trucs, in 2002 with Arnaud Joyet, and his second, Chose Promise, in 2007 with Joyet and François Rollin. His third, Confidences sur pas mal de trucs plus ou moins confidentiels, has been performed since 2014. He has attended numerous comedy festivals and is currently a member of the Ligue Majeure d'Improvisation.
Speaking about his early life and its relation to his surreal comic style, Tsamere said:
I grew up in a very comfortable environment. I wanted for nothing; serious things never happened to me in life. I have never been a victim of injustice, so I have nothing to protest. I don't have any particular origins which would be interesting to talk about. ... So, I do absurd stuff because I don't want to talk about other things.[d][12]
After getting his baccalauréat, he studied law at university, where he discovered an improvisational match in his first year and "fell in love" with the performance. In 1998, he obtained a master's degree in business law and later got a job working in export sales. However, he realised that he "could no longer live without the stage",[e][13] and on the advice of his friend Arnaud Joyet and Déclic Théâtre co-founder Alain Degois, quit his job and launched his career as a comedian.[2][13]
Career
Theatre and improvisation
I owe it to my first improvisation match in public in 1994. The theme was "The life of my mother"... and I didn't say a word! Arnaud Joyet, who was my coach, was tearing his hair out. The next day, my mates said: "Look, here's Arnaud, he's going to talk about his mother [sa mère]"
After quitting his previous job, Tsamere took part in the Déclic Théâtre improvisation group under its co-founder Alain "Papy" Degois, who he said "pushed me, gave me confidence, coddled me [and] got me to act in plays and improvisation matches".[g][2] Between 2003 and 2005, he played the baron Christian de Neuvillette in an adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac[14] at the Château de Gizeux with the theatre group La Pastière, to which he was introduced by Degois.[2]
Tsamere performing at the Montreux Comedy Festival with his puppet Falzouille. It originally belonged to Alain Degois's son, and he uses it to perform ventriloquism routines.[15]
He began writing his first one-man show in 2002 with his friend Arnaud Joyet, inspired by a videotape of comedian François Rollin.[2] The show, entitled Réflexions profondes sur pas mal de trucs[16] (Profound reflections on quite a few things), played on theatrical "flops", a form of humour that Tsamere said "can seem easy [but] is not when you really start to work on it".[h][12] It was performed at the Blancs Manteaux theatre from April 2005 to January 2006.[16]
Tsamere met Rollin at the Dinard Comedy Festival, and he joined Tsamere and Joyet to write a second show, Chose Promise[2] (Promised Thing). Written in 2007,[17] it stars Tsamere as an economics teacher named Patrice Valenton, performing as part of a promise made to a friend who died in a car accident.[18][19] He chose to perform as a character under Rollin's suggestion, so that he could depict failure under the guise of somebody who is not a comedian.[12] Regarding the show's theme of death, he said "It's a bit strange, but it has the virtue of attracting the public's attention".[i][12] Tsamere's performance was well received by critics; Le Parisien called the show a "masterpiece of the genre".[j][20]Chose Promise was released on DVD on 6 March 2013 after being recorded at the Théâtre Sébastopol in Lille.[21] Tsamere has done three tours of the show,[22] and its final two performances were at the Olympia in February 2014.[2]
Tsamere's third show, Confidences sur pas mal de trucs plus ou moins confidentiels (Secrets about quite a few more or less confidential things), also written with Rollin and Joyet, was performed on tour throughout France from November 2014, and at Le Splendid from January 2015. Tsamere has said it is based on the principal that "society laughs too much",[k] and will involve him talking about himself.[18]
On 25 June 2012 at the Européen theatre, Tsamere performed alongside the On n'demande qu'à en rire jury member Éric Métayer in Métamère en impro.[23] He performed La tournée du trio with his On n'demande qu'à en rire colleague Jérémy Ferrari, and Baptiste Lecaplain; after a tour of 12 performances in Zéniths, they did several special performances in February 2014.[24] Tsamere has attended comedy festivals such as the Montreux Comedy Festival,[25] where he performed with Ferrari,[26] and the Avignon Festival.[27] He is now part of the Ligue Majeure d'Improvisation.[28]
Television and radio
In 2005, with the help of Frédéric Testot, whom he met at a Puy-Saint-Vincent comedy festival, Tsamere got the job of presenting the weather forecast in Le Grand Journal on Canal+.[7] He also appeared in Canal+'s SAV des émissions,[29] presented by Testot and Omar Sy.[30] After quitting the weather in June 2006, he hosted La longue nuit du pénis on the same channel that September.[7] It was a night dedicated to the penis,[31] which Tsamere has described as "nothing pornographic or erotic. It was a series of serious documentaries."[l][7] He says he was asked after Frédérique Bel refused, because he was "probably the only one liable to accept".[m][7]
In 2007 Tsamere met Simon Astier during the recording of the M6 show Off Prime. He was given the role of Captain Sport Extrême in Astier's comedy science fiction programme, Hero Corp, which is broadcast on France 4.[2] He only appeared in one episode of the first series, but more frequently in the second.[32] Speaking about the differences between himself and his character, Tsamere said "He is a misogynist, beastly, an adventurer, unattached... I am just the opposite".[n][33] He also said "I've loved this character. I love playing crackpots."[o][7]
In 2010 he participated in the sketch comedytalent showOn n'demande qu'à en rire, created and presented by Laurent Ruquier and broadcast on France 2. Ruquier asked him to do so after he saw Tsamere in Monique est demandée caisse 12 and Le Comique.[13] He has described it as "the missing piece of the puzzle"[p] that allowed him to become well known.[2] He already knew all of the original participants, except for Nicole Ferroni, whom he discovered at a comedy festival in Puy-Saint-Vincent in January 2011.[34] He is friends with Jérémy Ferrari, with whom he has performed sketches on the show. The two share a well-known on-stage rivalry.[35]
Based on puns involving crime and food, his sketch "L'avocat de la salade, la frite et la saucisse" was the first in the programme to achieve 99 out of 100 points.[36] After participating in the show for two years and totalling 64 appearances, Tsamere announced in 2012 that he did not plan to return for its third season.[4] However, he came back the next year after the cancellation of the ONDAR Show, and described his stage fright before his first performance after his return.[37] When the show returned for its fourth season, he acted as patron (parrain) during the first week, and could save and work with eliminated candidates.[38]
In September 2011, Tsamere appeared with On n'demande qu'à en rire colleague Jérémy Ferrari in two editions of Ruquier's late-night talk showOn n'est pas couché—however, in what would have been their third week, they decided to quit the show as they thought that "our duo was not the right formula to succeed Jonathan [Lambert, their predecessor]",[q] as well as to concentrate on their "solo projects".[r][39] From October 2012 to January 2013, Tsamere took part in the ONDAR Show, a spin-off of On n'demande qu'à en rire in which its best comedians performed without judges in a format similar to American entertainment.[40] However, the show was unpopular with critics—Le Nouvel Observateur's Xavier Rousseau called it a "failed show" that "dashed hopes"[s][41]—and the ONDAR Show was cancelled after 13 episodes due to low viewing figures.[42]
In 2013, Tsamere joined the team of beIN Sports' programme Lunch Time,[43] which was hosted by Darren Tulett.[44] In February 2014, it was announced that Tsamere would host the TMCgame showCanapé Quiz, an adaptation of the American Hollywood Game Night. The show featured two teams, each composed of three celebrities and one member of the public, competing in a series of games.[45] Three weeks later, TMC announced that Canapé Quiz had been cancelled and new episodes were to be moved to a later timeslot because of low viewing figures—10 days after its launch, it failed to pass 100,000 viewers.[46] Discussing the show's audience in an interview on Europe 1, Tsamere stated that he did not care about the viewing figures, and also mentioned that he had received positive feedback about the show on Twitter, which he called "quite a revealing thing".[t][47] He also stressed that he has fun when filming Canapé Quiz.[47] From 13 July 2015, Tsamere will present the game show Une famille en or (the French version of Family Feud and Family Fortunes) when it returns on TMC;[48] it was previously presented by Christophe Dechavanne from 2007 to 2014 on TF1.[49] Tsamere said "It's the challenge of taking the reins of a cult programme that interested me".[u][48]
In 2011, Tsamere's first film role was Séverin in Charles Nemes' Au bistro du coin.[2][53] In the same year, he appeared in Pascale Pouzadoux's La Croisière, and in the short films Le Métro (directed by Dianeïa Schaefer)[54] and Deal (Wilfried Méance).[55] Tsamere played the character of Vincent in Arnaud Demanche's short film Being Homer Simpson, in which he appeared alongside Philippe Peythieu and Véronique Augereau, the voice actors of Homer and Marge respectively in the French dub of the animated series The Simpsons.[56] He also starred alongside José Garcia in Fonzy, a remake of the film Starbuck,[57] in which he plays Maître Chasseigne. It was released on 30 October 2013.[58]
Tsamere's style can be described as absurd humour,[1] which according to him "has no hold on current events, politics or religion".[w][64] He is a specialist in improvisation.[1] He is known for his "slow burn" technique (a term coined by On n'demande qu'à en rire jury member Jean-Luc Moreau), in which he talks about a subject before moving on to another and repeatedly interrupting himself to return to the initial subject.[65] His humour is popular with television audiences, and has boosted On n'demande qu'à en rire's viewing figures.[66]
On his website, Tsamere provides a link to that of François Rollin, as well as to that of English comedian Ricky Gervais, whom he calls "my absolute master".[x][67] Other role models of his are the brothers Simon and Alexandre Astier—he says of them and Gervais that he "could watch them perform anything".[y][33] He has stated that his favourite director is Tim Burton, linking this to his surreal style.[11]
^Original: J'ai grandi dans un univers très confortable ... voilà, j'ai manqué de rien, il m'est jamais arrivé des choses graves dans la vie, j'ai jamais été victime d'injustice et donc j'ai rien à revendiquer. J'ai pas d'origines particulières en tout cas qui soient intéressantes d'en parler ... donc, je fais de l'absurde parce que j'ai pas envie de parler d'autre chose, en fait.
^Original: Je le dois à mon premier match d’impro en public en 1994. Le thème était « La vie de ma mère »... et je n’ai pas sorti un mot ! Arnaud Joyet, qui était mon coach, s'arrachait les cheveux. Le lendemain, mes camarades m'ont dit : « Tiens, voilà Arnaud, il va nous parler de sa mère… »
^Original: me pousse, me donne confiance, me couve, me fait jouer des pièces de théâtre et des matchs d'impro
^Original: peut paraître un peu de la facilité. En tout cas, ce ne l'est pas quand on commence à le travailler vraiment...
^Original: c'est un petit peu bizarre mais ça a le mérite d'attirer l'attention du public
Tsamere, Arnaud (interviewee) (8 April 2013). Arnaud Tsamere : maître de l'absurde [Arnaud Tsamere: master of the absurd]. L'Internaute (Online video) (in French). Retrieved 16 August 2013.
Specific
^ abcCardona, Caroline (26 March 2013). "Arnaud Tsamere : maître de l'absurde" [Arnaud Tsamere: master of the absurd]. L'Internaute (in French). Retrieved 15 August 2013.
^ abcdefghijklTsamere, Arnaud. "Biographie" [Biography]. ArnaudTsamere.com (in French). Retrieved 12 August 2013.
^Tsamere, Arnaud (19 April 2012). On n'demande qu'à en rire (Television programme) (in French). France 2. Event occurs at 6:16 (in video clip). Retrieved 16 August 2013.
^ abBourbon, Nicole. "Arnaud Tsamère". Regarts (in French). Retrieved 15 August 2013.
^ abcdGervais, Nicolas. "Entretien avec Arnaud Tsamere" [Interview with Arnaud Tsamere]. Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (in French). Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 16 August 2013.
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