“It was a disaster,” laughs Jess Bauldry, talking about her first-ever time doing comedy on stage. She recounts the material she had, a too-long story (“15 minutes!”) about forgetting to pay for petrol and getting phoned--while on the toilet--by the police. Fortunately, she says, the audience was very polite.

That was many workshops, courses, and gigs ago, however. Bauldry has honed her skills a lot since then, with her two-hander 50 Ways to Leave Your Employer doing a sold-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year, after debuting at Festrogen 2022.

“This is the thing,” she says about doing comedy: “It can be learned.” Bauldry got interested in stand-up when she started a job at (of all places) Maison Moderne, which involved public speaking. A couple of years later, during the pandemic, she started studying joke structures and comedy techniques via online courses.

“A really easy tip is to make sure that the punch line is at the end of your sentence,” she says as an example, adding: “It feels so obvious now.”

Life skill

It might be easy to dismiss stand-up comedy as a niche talent reserved for certain (naturally funny) people, but in Bauldry’s description it’s not only learnable but also far more enriching, dynamic and practical than that.

“You start to see your life in a different way--you transform tragedy into stuff that’s just hilarious,” she explains. “Everything just washes off and you develop a thick skin.” For her, learning to perform stand-up can translate into core skills like confidence, self-awareness and certainly humour. “Even if you’re not wanting to do comedy, it’s quite useful,” she points out.

The workplace is one place where such skills can go a long way. And, suggests Bauldry, perhaps in particular for women. “We want more women on boards, we want more equality, but sometimes [women] are pushed into these roles and they’re not ready,” she says. “I think comedy gives you that self-awareness--you can grow and maybe become more comfortable in those sorts of leadership roles.”

One skill crucial in leadership is authority, which incidentally is a must for comics facing an audience of tipsy strangers and with no defence but a microphone. “You need some authority on stage,” Bauldry laughs, telling a story of when she once volunteered to be a touch rugby referee, let the players run wild, and generally made “the worst” ref.

“But now,” she says, “when I’m on stage with the microphone…” she stares down an imaginary heckler: “You--get--out!”

“It’s so liberating,” she adds.

A (huge) gender imbalance

Bauldry and her four cofounders--Erin Crouch, Mari Volar, Anshita Koul and Sharon VS, all of them comedians too--have designed a comedy festival that helps female comics get on stage but also provides a space for them to meet each other, hone their craft and (quite simply) network. In March 2023 Bauldry also cofounded Frilly Curtains, a club collective in Luxembourg that puts on comedy shows by women.

“It goes right through the system,” she explains, talking about sexism and a predilection for booking male comedians. A lack of female producers leads to a lack of women on stage, she points out, while most producers prioritise ticket sales over gender politics (and thus preserve the status quo). She also suggests that women, on the whole, might be less pushy when it comes to getting the job.

Due to all of the above, women are underrepresented in comedy. As of June 2023, the UK-based website Chortle, a database of comedians, lists 1,565 male comedians and 379 female. Another study breaks down over 33,000 comedian appearances on UK panel shows, finding a dismal 20/80% female/male split. (Some of the data pertains to shows running for several decades, so this number doesn’t necessarily represent how comedians are booked in 2023. Even accounting for that, however, the imbalance is obvious. Find the survey here.)

As for the pre-Festrogen comedy scene in Luxembourg, Bauldry estimates that there were about ten times as many men doing stand-up: two or three women to 20 or 30 men.

“It was kind of lonely.”

Festrogen

Hence, Festrogen. “The goal is to be inclusive of anyone identifying as a woman--whatever that means to them,” says Bauldry.

On the program this year are four workshops and five shows. Some 30-35 participants are expected, up from last year’s cohort of 21. The shows are open to the public.

It all kicks off on 15 June with “The Golden Girls” show, featuring local comedians, before some out-of-town acts (“that we want everyone to see!”) take the stage on subsequent evenings. Another highlight will certainly be “Introducing Class of ’23”, where workshop attendees will get a chance to take the stage, possibly for the first time.

Bauldry is particularly excited about one of the guest performers, Melanie Hamlett. Three-time winner of The Moth storytelling competition, Hamlett will give a workshop on storytelling and will close the festival with a solo performance on Sunday evening.

This year the festival is also backed by the City of Luxembourg, which has helped defray the cost of bringing in the professional lineup.

A final point that Bauldry stresses is that Festrogen is inclusive for people who are differently abled. All the venues are wheelchair accessible.

Find more information, including the full program, on the Festrogen website.