This BSCC award-winning platform was the first of its kind to pioneer English speaking stand up comedy for multilingual international audiences. Establishing comedy club culture in Switzerland and laundering tons & tons of comedy gold into the Swiss joke bank from 2006 onwards, in 2022/23 International Comedy Club aka Funny Laundry embarked on its final year of Funny Laundering.
Guy Stevens, son of well-known British comedy & character actor Ronnie Stevens, arrived in Switzerland jobless. Despite having decades of experience in show business he found no interest in his skill sets locally and during a bout of home-sickness decided to create regular, touring comedy club nights as a means to making a living for his new family, whilst sharing top quality English language laughs around the country at the same time. Founding a regular programme of authentic comedy club culture in Switzerland brought something brand new to the entertainment landscape and filled the (yawning!) gap that existed for professional English language entertainment in general, catering to both long and short term international residents and local anglophiles alike.
From the first night in Zurich in May 2006 – and totalling 676 shows until the last in 2023 – the club grew into a landmark stage for top English‑speaking comedians. Audiences packed in to see standout acts including Eddie Izzard, Michael McIntyre, Trevor Noah, Dylan Moran, Simon Amstell, Alan Davies, Sarah Millican, Jim Jefferies, Dara O’Briain, Sean Hughes, Arthur Smith, Paul Merton’s Impro Chums, Frankie Boyle, Richard Herring, Ari Shaffir, Ed Byrne, Russell Howard, Jimmy Carr, Matt Kirshen, Nina Conti, Kevin Bridges, Omid Djalili, Tom Rhodes, Ross Noble, Ardal O’Hanlon, Guy Pratt, Tommy Tiernan, Lucy Porter, Rich Hall, Josh Widdecombe, Daniel Sloss and the legendary punk poet John Cooper Clarke, to name just a few.
A consistent, dedicated spotlight was always given to notable up-and-coming talent in the English speaking stand up comedy world, especially the new wave of non-native English speaking comics, such as Magnus Betner, Christian Shulte-Loh, Dag Soras, Henning Wehn, Francesco de Carlo, Luca Cupani, Sofie Hagen and others, who were all championed as part of regular line-ups as early as 2008. With Swiss comics Thomas Wiesel, Noman Hosni, Nathanaël Rochat and Javier Garcia amongst them.
From the outset an open spot was made available at club shows and for many years this gave the very few that were interested in trying stand up an in-at-the-deep-end experience, sharing the stage with the professionals. Funny Laundry/International Comedy Club offered advice, time and expertise to anyone that wished to learn more about comedy stage craft and potentially take the next steps towards a full-time comedy career. But none ever expressed that desire in Switzerland. Those who did decide to ‘have a go’ usually did so just for fun and so fun, and quite a few laughs, was what they and the very supportive audiences generally had whenever people bravely stepped up onto the stage.
However, after more than a decade striving to maintain shows and develop the platform beyond Swiss borders, seeking collaborations with local entertainment and media companies and asking for Swiss sponsorship support that never materialised, in 2017, a group of overly enthusiastic would-be ‘comedians’ appeared out of nowhere. Jostling themselves individually and en masse onto club stage open mics at the same time as a Swiss Re sponsored ‘British Comedy Night’ was being mounted at an established Zurich klein kunst venue, fronted by a Swiss journalist.
Before long, paid-entry open mics and hobby-comic-focused ‘comedy nights’ also emerged with accompanying media coverage – some of which was in direct contradiction to its previous reporting. It became evident that the self-proclaimed ‘comedians’ behind these efforts, and those pulling their strings from afar, or im Schatten (in the shadows) locally, were not genuine in their comedic pursuits or in any claimed intention to support the platform’s growth. Disrupting the established club shows and dividing the increasingly developed and integrated audiences by ‘flooding the zone’ with stand up comedy karaoke under several ‘brands’, despite there being no public demand for them.
Maintaining the highest standards built International Comedy Club’s reputation. Keeping those standards high is what set it apart, making it a respected entity among UK, US and international comedy professionals and a unique and influential entity in the social and cultural landscape of Switzerland and Europe as a whole.
But one person working alone for over a decade, am langen arm verhungern lassen (hung out to dry) by passive-aggressive, oligopolistic entertainment and media industries and overwhelmed by a fabricated ‘comedy scene’ created by a troupe of clown puppets and puppeteers, can only take so much, whether seriously or not, for so long. Especially, having only just enough from his turnover to survive on for all those years, in one of the richest, most expensive, and unfriendly countries in the world.
The last International Comedy Club show in Switzerland was on May 26 2023 at Mascotte in Zurich.
By early 2024 Guy Stevens was packing his bags, and after twenty-one years as a permanent Swiss resident he left the country, having kein Schloss to live in, oder Geld left to live on.
Funny Laundry & International Comedy Club are on hiatus.
International Comedy Festival is weighing up its options.
Guy Stevens is slowly writing a book.
Updated September 2025
“Seymour” + Red Hot Chili Peppers – Foxy Lady [One Hour with Jonathan Ross – UK C4 – 16th March 1990]