Juan D. Ablo

International comedy producer and man of mystery

THE QUICK COMEDY career BIO
After a misspelt yuff, spent largely preparing for a 4 year submersion course into what was the '2nd Summer of love', the birth of drum n bass in London which extended to a PSD (post submersion development) with a focus on the magic of fungi in Northern Ireland, Juan returned to southern Ireland to study Music & Media MGMT in Ireland's infamous 'Rock School' in beautiful Ballyfermot.
Juan headed next for Holland & Belgium to experience the wonderful gastronomy... then to Finland for the engaging conversation... back to Holland for some more of that wonderful gastronomy... and onto a backward Barcelona that was in need of a Juan style boost to fulfill it's aspirations of becoming a hotbed of cool events...
Barcelona - March 2004: Created the very 1st Professional English language comedy show in Spain a 'Best of Irish Special' as part of Barcelona's legendary Irish Festival, El Feile
March 2005: another 'Best of Irish Special' and the announcement of a regular club in Barcelona and Madrid called the Giggling Guiri

March 2004 - 2010: The Giggling Guiri would establish itself as one of the most renowned monthly comedy clubs on Continental Europe and play host to everybody from Michael Mc Intyre to Phil Nichol and every great comic in between.
Over 150 of the world's very greatest Comedy performers, would go on to perform on ComedyinSpain stages right up to the present day
Giggling Guiri programming was built each year on the best shows, found at the annual comedy mecca that is the Edinburgh Fringe every August. In its time the GG hosted 4 times the winner of the overall Edinburgh award

COMEDY FESTIVALS
November 2007 - present: Created the very first www.barcelonacomedyfestival.com in 2008 rubberstamped it with an official International launch at the Edinburgh Fringe to do justice to its status as the World's only multilingual comedy festival (still!!)
I accompanied that launch by bringing 4 comics schooled in workshops I presented with comedy guru Logan Murray to 'The Fringe'. Directed and shot a guerilla filmed short film to support the live performances as part of that show. See trailer (on the right) and one of the final edits (below).
2012: created The Funniest FICer comedy competition within the Barcelona festival, huge success and still running and crowning the best of Barcelona's burgeoning amateur comedy scene!

Spanish shows continue to grow...

2014!! produced the biggest comedy event ever to be staged in Spain with the biggest comedy legend ever to perform there for 6 intimate and totally sold out shows with the legendary Eddie Izzard...
to add to his French, German and English offering Eddie would return in 2016 and over 41 shows through Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia, culminating back in Madrid on Feb 2 & 3rd 2017 when he delivered a full show in Spanish!!
A stand alone festival appears in the Spanish capital when www.madridcomedyfestival.com appeared which included a Madrid version of the Funniest FICer which leads to the 2013 Madrid's Funniest FICer Archie Bezos going to Hollywood and ultimately Las Vegas to compete in the inaugural Laugh Factory's search for the 'Funniest Person in the world'. He comes 5th!!

Post end of workshop show foto

Over a decade in Spain the most transformative thing Juan brought to the comedy table there, was undoubtedly the Logan Murray comedy Workshops
Over 6 years they left a direct legacy that lives, breathes, performs, and cracks audiences up in both Madrid and Barcelona every month to this day!
2010 right wing wankers the PP decide that at the height of the Spanish 'crisis' what people don't need is culture and declares war on Culture! Juan is forced into exile in Brasil which has a couple of decent events in the offing
with the Brazilian World cup and Rio Olympics and rust never sleeps...

2015: RIO NIGHT LIVE stablishes itself as the only weekly english language creative Arts platform in Rio including comedy both Stand Up and Improv, Magic, Cabaret and live storytelling via Vent! telling it like it was to the Brazilian public for the first time all in a legendary Copacabana music venue, Bottles Bar - the cradle of Bossa Nova.

Long before it was a 'thing' our glorious leader JUAN established a live true storytelling night in a Barcelona Cellar entitled VENT! Telling it like it was which lasted for a few seasons and became part of Rio Night Live Juan's next stop

.We closed 2015 on December 4th with the biggest one off English language comedy show to ever take place in Spain comedy history with Juan's one true stand up comedy hero Dylan Moran in Barcelona's best venue Sala Apolo for a blistering sold out night of Stand Up.
2016: The bomb hit
2017: Señor Izzard returned with the ultimate multilingual comedy project to headline the 8th edition of still the World's only multilingual comedy festival in Barcelona.
He would proceed to do 41 shows in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia before returning to Madrid on Feb 2nd and 3rd to deliver the goal of a full Force Majeure show in Spanish