Le Splendid

Le Splendid stands on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin as an icon of French comedy. Before it became a legendary theater, the building served as a neighborhood concert hall in the late nineteenth century and later transitioned into a cinema, eventually exclusively showing films for adults. In 1981, a group of young, ambitious actors and writers discovered this space through a newspaper advertisement and decided to transform it into their permanent home. This group, famously known as the Splendid troupe, included household names like Michel Blanc, Gérard Jugnot, and Josiane Balasko. Their arrival turned a former adult cinema into one of the most significant venues for modern French humor, where they staged iconic plays that defined a generation of French cinema and culture.