Vincent Kucholl presents his Right Show at Boulimie in Lausanne

Before the premiere of his Right-wing show In Lausanne, we cooked Vincent Kucholl around… right-wing food.image: marine brunner

With A right-wing showVincent Kucholl takes the stage in the guise of the famous Reto Zenhäusern, but without “the other Vincent”, all the same very active in the shadows. Despite this safety net, the young fifty-something saw his solo escape as a “big jump”. We cooked it before the premiere, around a little food… obviously right-wing.

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Sunday evening, our date luxury quickly makes his choice. Two oysters to shake the glottis, before feasting on poultry in vin jaune, accompanied by a generous braid of tagliatelle. We had a lame plan to pull the wool over the eyes of the most popular and introverted comedian in French-speaking Switzerland: slip cutlery into his hands so that he forgets (a little) that everything he says will be published in the media.

And what could be better, to causeA right-wing showthan a venerable Lausanne brasserie full of white-collar workers who loosen their ties for a long dinner?

Yes, even Kucholl goes through the promotional ritual. Forty-eight hours later, Zurich resident Reto Zenhäusern will welcome his first “victims of consumerism” to the Boulimie theater with his very first one-man show, for nineteen first dates yet sold out in a few hours: “Of course, it’s nice to see that the public is there. But I feel even more this obligation not to disappoint,” he says, finishing his beer, as if the thousands of loyal fans acquired over the years could find themselves disappointed by a Vincent overnight.

True to himself, the artist is both aware of his success, frightened by failure and panicked at the idea of ​​saying or doing too much.

A poster that looks like a pack of cigarettes, right? image: marine brunner

An example? At the next table, a young man, alone with his smartphone under his nose, chews noisily with his mouth open. It will be flashy enough to catch the discreet figure of fifty years off. As we know, Vincent Kucholl has never felt either the desire or the need to show and open his mouth once his makeup has been removed.

Even less on social networks. A character trait and an unprecedented opportunity in 2026, when many of his colleagues now seem obliged to make their community laugh (and even think), between a radio column and an appearance on stage.

He just remembers a little impulse and an old anonymous Tripadvisor account with which he destroyed two establishments on his way home, after “two very bad experiences. One day, we were kicked out before we even entered the restaurant.”

A privilege that he also owes to the fact that the duo he forms with “the other Vincent” is as old as Instagram and that the official “52 Minutes” account, casually, does very good after-sales service.

Once the hundreds of thousands of viewers turn off their televisions on Saturday evening, Vincent Kucholl does not spend his evenings shaking the algorithm. He takes refuge with his family, eats with friends, works in a team, reads the press, watches American late shows. “I love Jimmy Kimmel, it’s entertaining, funny, informative and super well put together.”

A young boomer who advances masked to decipher the news and pulls back his smartphone to read it. He will still admit to having one day ordered a small suitcase thanks to an intrusive advertisement. An impulsive purchase that he still carries around today: “I had it with me not long ago, when I isolated myself for a few hours in a nice hotel in the region while I learned my lines.” It must be said that under the emblematic costume of the right-wing asshole, Reto Zenhäusern will have to spit out seventy-five minutes of conference.

And, this time, without the revivals of the famous sidekick and this solid alchemy, long considered essential to the madness and confidence of its characters.

Kucholl alone? Yes, but not alone and even less in an unknown land. We also admit to him that, in the guise of a Reto Zenhäusern who no longer needs to be presented and with his friend Veillon in the direction and artistic production, it will perhaps be necessary to fight hard to convince French-speaking Switzerland that Vincent Kucholl is taking risks. A safety net which does not prevent the old veteran of humor from considering this adventure as a personal “big leap”.

Vincent Kucholl has been dreaming of “getting his shit together” for a while now, but it took some external impulses and brainstorming for the desire to finally turn into a project. Reto Zenhäusern, on the other hand, never had any competition when choosing the star who would embody this adventure: “A comedian friend suggested it to me a few years ago. Reto has the advantage of being able to express himself on many social issues. “He has a much broader spectrum than that of the Lausanne professor, Julien Bovey, for example.”

This Zurich investor, happy, privileged, mocking and dressed like Donald Trump, is also sufficiently “confident” of himself to allow himself an almost infinite freedom of tone and opinion. Even if A right-wing show isn’t really one. “The title is a little provocation. This conference targets above all the consumerist society, obsessed with profit and power, in which we all have a share of responsibility, me first and foremost.” In bulk? Poverty, work, the luxury industry, inequalities and even the state of democracy.

Right-wing food.image: marine brunner

Like Reto, Vincent succeeded in life. Without the Wall Street costume, but with wigs and accents. As the poultry arrives at the table, he is asked if money and success have changed the artist’s values ​​or political views. “No. The key moment of my life was when I finished my theater studies.”

On a daily basis, he readily describes himself as a “humanist liberal” who has difficulty supporting opportunism and prefers opinions that are “constructed rather than vomited.” At work, Kucholl loves to sit in the center so he can point out the inconsistencies and absurdities on both sides of the political spectrum.

That some people sometimes consider that he doesn’t get wet makes him “neither hot nor cold”: “I’ve heard this criticism from the start. But I like this mask and this perspective, I like the game, I like deciphering society through fiction. It’s in tune with who I am deep inside and the way I want to do my work.”

Without forgetting this little Protestant side which sometimes plays tricks on him, horrified at the idea that people might think that he is showing off, even if he likes to “enjoy life a little”. Unsurprisingly, his vision of a stroke of madness boils down to staying “in a very beautiful Parisian hotel which has a history”. We are far from the two kilometer long yachts in Dubai and the limitless enjoyment of Reto Zenhäusern. Nice holidays and good food, that’s all.

Besides, what is a typically right-wing dish? After having thrown out “blanquette”, he changed his mind to make it a left-wing specialty, “because it is affordable and it requires work”: “Politically, I would say that everything that is meat, in our time, is right-wing”.

Fifteen years after uncapping 120 seconds on the airwaves of the public service, first in slibard and on the line from home, before taking out the wigs, Vincent Kucholl is therefore preparing to “deal with it” all alone on stage.

When it’s time to tackle the dessert, a floating island, we understand to what extent the French-speaking star loves his job with the same rigor and fervor as in 2012, when Reto Zenhäusern, then a senior executive at Novartis, arrived for the first time on the airwaves of Color 3.

The Gourmet Festival 2026 of the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL), in pictures.

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The Gourmet Festival 2026 of the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL), in pictures.

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