Cross-cultural comedy

I meet Xavi Castells at his first-storey apartment in Barcelona. It’s a pleasant day, if a little hot, and he greets me with a beer and a smile. His computer is open on the table showing a page half-filled with words. He jokingly covers the screen to block some comedy gold or other from my view. Like me, Xavi is a stand-up comedian. Unlike me, however, he does not need to tag a humble ‘aspiring’ on to the front of his title. Four years ago he made the leap into life as a full-time artist. Since then, it has paid for everything from his flat and his food, to his clothes and his holidays. That is no mean feat.

I first met Xavi through the English-language comedy scene in Barcelona. “I truthfully prefer English-speaking stand-up comedy,” said Xavi, citing Bill Burr and Jimmy Carr as particular favourites. “I think it’s superior to Spanish stand-up, for the simple reason that Spanish stand-up comedy is so young. It can’t be more than 15 or 16 years old. In English comedy, you can talk about so many more things at the moment, and, besides that, Barcelona has easily the best English-language scene in Spain.”

If anyone would know, it would be Xavi. When he first arrived in Barcelona from his native Valencia over a decade ago, Xavi began attending as many gigs as he could, even starting a blog entitled ‘Friki de la Comedia’ (comedy nerd) to chronicle his fandom. It was his first experience writing about the world of comedy and it wouldn’t be his last. But, before he was to break into the comedy scene, Xavi had some living to do.

“Moving to Leeds was the best thing I ever did. I didn’t know any English so I had to learn from scratch, working in a kitchen job where I had no previous experience.” Prior to this, Xavi had been a textiles salesman, but with big changes on the cards in that industry, he decided to broaden his horizons by learning English. 

“It was great, but at the beginning I hated it. I didn’t know anybody except the guy who got me the job; the weather was terrible and the food was... well, anyway, eventually I got past all that and made a life for myself. I worked hard in my English classes and I stayed for three years. I read somewhere once that you should change your life every five years. That was the first time that I really changed mine.”

His next major change came when he accepted the post of maître d’ at a swanky Barcelona hotel. Any successful spell in the hospitality industry is a taste of comedy performing, which is something that I can also attest to. “You’re like an ambassador for the city when you do that job, but you’re reading from somebody else’s script and it really just made me want to write my own.”

When it comes to writing, Xavi is hard-working and meticulous. Every morning he wakes up early and writes three pages: “[I wake up] at 7am for some reason; I must be getting old.” It’s another one of the rules he lives by—he’s quoted a handful since I entered the apartment. When he started out in comedy, while still manning the wheel at the hotel, he used to attend a gig every night in order to constantly improve. Within a year, he had left the hotel to work as a stand-up comedian. That was Spanish comedy, then came English.

“The first time I tried it was in Seattle, where I went with a 90-day holiday visa. At first I was just translating my Spanish act, but I found it was getting no response. I was gigging there every night so I was able to improve a lot. I created one of the characters that I still use in my English act today—a clueless foreign guy who doesn’t understand the culture.”

So far, so Yakov Smirnoff, but if that makes you think less of his act, think again. Xavi won The Hague’s 2015 prestigious international competition and took his act on a tour of the Balkans on the strength of that. Since then, he has performed on legendary stages around the world, including New York’s Gotham Comedy Club and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where he’ll return next year, as well as doing numerous spots on Comedy Central. For now though, Xavi is approaching the next five-year mark in his life and must give some thought to his immediate future.

“It might involve moving to Madrid, because that’s where all the TV is and that’s where I’d like to develop my next set of projects. I’m developing a few different things at the moment, but I’ll go for whatever allows me to put my personality out there most. I’ve moved through a series of jobs that I’ve liked a lot, so working hard is very enjoyable for me. I also feel I’ve been very lucky.”

Xavi is entitled to his opinion, but, after hearing his story, it seems that hard work, rather than luck, has brought him this far. Luck may pay the rent once or put beer in your glass, but hard work will get you a refill. 

Catch Xavi every Friday in Hotel Ciutat del Prat at 10pm and every Sunday on the rooftop of Jazz Hotel at 8pm. He can be heard every Wednesday on Ràdio Kanal Barcelona at 11am co-hosting The Weekly Noticias with Tim Parfitt.