French lothario Marcel Lucont talks to Rupert Uzzell about becoming the sleaziest chat show host since Adrian Chiles.
What do you get if you cross Michael Parkinson, Charles De Gaulle and Peter Stringfellow? Why, Marcel Lucont of course, in his new guise as a chat-show host at this year’s Edinburgh fringe. I talk to him about the show, his ever-blossoming love-life, and his opinions of the British.
So Marcel, in Edinburgh this year you’re hosting a chat show. In a fantasy world, who would be the ideal guest you’d most want to have on if you could?
Of course Gainsbourg. The results would, I fear, be unbroadcastable, and I believe it would continue long after the final audience member has left. What a man.
How would you deal with a really tedious interviewee?
I have six nude women waiting backstage every night to deal with this eventuality, and a cabinet with enough alcohol to paralyse a bear.
You have the reputation of being something of a ladies' man. What advice would you give to any guys aspiring to be as successful with the gentler sex as you are?
Stay away from my turf, hahaha. No, seriously, I will hurt you. Actually I find the term "gentler sex" a little sexist, and often quite untrue, especially when angered. The trick to getting oneself a prized piece of vagina is balance – intent without the intensity, 'hard-to-get' without physical violence, and wit without resorting to a barrage of terrible 'chat-up lines'. "Did it hurt when you fell from Heaven?" a British man may ask. Personally I would recommend avoiding any lines implying concussion.
Where’s your ideal haunt to find potential partners?
What a bizarre English phrase is 'haunt'. I do not like the necrophiliac connotations. But to answer, bars nearby to divorce courts prove fruitful often, as do the erotic poetry sections of libraries, sadly lacking in most British libraries. I tend to set up my own, and wait.
If propositioned by someone who doesn’t really take your fancy, how do you let them down gently?
I have an anti-fragrance in the shops in France, of the name 'Womaniser'. It is a spray for the over-successful to repel excess women. Buy five bottles and it comes with a free shitty stick.
You’ve released a book entitled “What We French Think Of You British (And Where You Are Going Wrong)”. What’s your least favourite characteristic of the British?
The misplaced superiority of the English. I find England to be like a schoolground bully who has stopped growing, but still insists that everyone else calls him 'sir', suggesting also that everyone speaks his language (just a mixture of others' languages) and carrying his own type of currency, believing himself to be better than the kids on the other side of the river. Yet he still sucks up to his big cousin who has all the best catapults, except for the ones he sold to the rough boys down the road. This analogy could go on and on. You get the idea...
The French sometimes have a reputation for being a bit snooty. Would you say this is fair?
You say 'snooty,' I say 'discerning'. A Briton may say, “Oh that French man has just snubbed me.” Well maybe that French man, based on constructive assessment, found you to be a dick. We cannot go through life as American waiters. Not everyone deserves to "have a nice day" without earning it.
Which are better: French or British girls?
I know what you expect me to say, but British women are far easier to lead to the bedroom, and excellent for that 'quick fix'. However they often lack the dedicated skills of the French girl. To paraphrase, one can lead a horse to a water-bed, but one cannot make it perform complicated sexual manoeuvres.
Do you ever see yourself settling down in future with just the one partner?
Yes, of course. And I will eat only one type of food, read only one book over and over, and visit only one bar, for the rest of my life. What a wonderful existence that would be...
Marcel Lucont Etc: A Chat Show will be on at Edinburgh's Underbelly from August 4th-28th
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