Yvain Dans Pas Courageux - Le Boui-boui, Lyon

At Le Boui-Boui: Yvain in Pas courageux

From our snug brick-lined room in the heart of Lyon, we at Le Boui-Boui love nothing more than watching a new hour take shape right in front of an audience, and Yvain brings exactly that spark with Pas courageux. The title hints at his favorite playground: the gap between who we think we are and the endearingly hesitant person we become when life throws its curveballs. In our intimate space—where you are never more than a few steps from the stage—his finely tuned, conversational stand-up thrives. The show pivots between playful self-mockery and sharply observed slices of everyday life in Lyon: the rush-hour shuffle, the small tremors of chance encounters, the hilarious diplomacy of family dinners. Yvain’s style leans on quick pivots, soft-spoken confidence, and a knack for transforming tiny anxieties into big collective laughs. It’s unfiltered without being harsh, warm without turning sweet, and tailor-made for the up-close chemistry that defines a night here at Le Boui-Boui.

Current artistic moment and the live experience

Pas courageux arrives at a lively moment in Yvain’s creative journey, with fresh material that he has been refining across late-night try-outs and compact club spots before bringing it to our stage. He threads the hour with recurring mini-sketches and narrative beats that function like chapters, each circling the question of courage with disarming wit. Expect tight, memorable bits such as “Micro-courage,” “Le héros du lundi matin,” “Bouton rouge, gros stress,” “Appels inconnus,” “Le métro à l’heure de pointe,” “Plan B de papa,” and “Mode avion social,” moments he stitches together through nimble callbacks and a rhythm that keeps the room leaning forward. In our setting, these pieces unfold like a conversation, with Yvain calibrating the tempo in real time: a whisper to catch the front row, a quick aside to the back corner, and suddenly the entire audience is in on the secret. This is contemporary French stand-up at its most alive—less about grand statements than about the kind of truthful, precisely observed details that make everyone feel seen. The show’s spine is clear and confident, yet it leaves space for surprise; the little stumbles and spontaneous asides are part of its charm and, in our experience, a major source of the night’s biggest laughs.

Because Le Boui-Boui is built for proximity, Yvain’s crowd work isn’t an add-on; it’s a gentle engine that powers Pas courageux. He checks the pulse of the room and folds real-time reactions into the architecture of the set, returning to your answers later as deft callbacks that feel planned all along. Our lighting and sound design keep the staging minimal so that the storytelling stays front and center, placing his timing and wordplay under a warm, close-up lens. Expect an hour-long journey that starts with the jitters we all recognize—answering the unknown number, navigating a crowded tram, overthinking a simple favor—and then widens into stories about family myths and the little legends we invent to feel braver than we are. It’s a show designed for this room: direct, rhythmical, and wonderfully human. When the laugh rolls through Le Boui-Boui, you feel it bounce off the stone and back into the next line—and Yvain, eyes bright, is right there to catch it and send it flying again.