The Beginning

The Zurich Comedy Club has come a long way since its modest beginnings in 1954 and its first production, "Quiet Weekend", in 1955.

Today the club has over 120 members and meets regularly to rehearse two (and sometimes three) annual productions staged at the Theater im Seefeld in the Kirchgemeindehaus in Seefeld, occasional musicals and a series of one act plays, usually two or three such plays performed at the Theater STOK.

Our longest-serving, and still very active member, Alan Bridgman, who joined in 1955, recalls that it all began when a few staff members of the British Consulate decided it would be fun to do some play reading. English people, especially when living abroad, show great enthusiasm for amateur dramatics. Alan adds that, wherever he has worked or travelled abroad, in English speaking communities, whether in Pakistan, Hamburg or Moscow, it seems one of the first impulses which the English have to satisfy is to start drama clubs.

This was the case well before the days of the Zurich Comedy Club. A predecessor called "The English Players" was started in World War 1. "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Irish author Oscar Wilde was produced at the Theater zu Kaufleuten in 1918.

Another famous Irish author, James Joyce (then living in exile in Zurich), was the club's business manager. The play was to end in quarrels and the club ceased to exist soon after. The incident is mentioned in Tom Stoppard's play "Travesties" produced at the 1991 Joyce festival in Zurich by the Comedy Club, which is manifestly enjoying a longer and more fruitful destiny.

Sixty per cent of our audiences are Swiss with a good command of the English language. On average, the Club puts on nine performances of each major production, reaching an audience of about 4,000 people in total.

Forty years ago tickets cost CHF 5.50. Today they fetch CHF 38, which is still an accessible price considering the high standards of acting and production achieved by the ZCC. Productions now are more lavish. For the last major Shakespeare production "Much Ado About Nothing" the Club hired costumes form the National Theatre in London and the Royal Shakespeare Company based in Stratford-upon-Avon in the UK. Even including shipping and insurance costs, this still ended up being cheaper than renting them in Switzerland.

The cost of putting on a play (a major production) can range from CHF 35,000 to over CHF 80,000. And yet there are still surpluses left to subsidise the smaller productions and for charity donations in Switzerland, the UK or elsewhere in the world.