Luis Piedrahita: a word-eating, word-erobic and word-eating animal

Our guest on this occasion is a unique guy. He is a screenwriter, film director, magician and, naturally, one of the best comedians in the country. A guy capable of giving a hilarious monologue about Christmas decorations, sharpening the fine print on products, inventing the words missing from the dictionary or auctioning off his own gallbladder live on television. We have a special soft spot for this artist they call the King of Small Things. We are pleased to introduce you to Luis Piedrahita.

Spanish is a praiseworthy language, no matter who speaks it. Do you praise it?

I praise it. There are those who laila it.

Language is one of the most frequently mentioned topics in his monologues. You create new words, play with prospectuses and instructions… Do you have the soul of a philologist?

The person who best described my relationship with words was Marcos Mundstok, from Les Luthiers, in the prologue of my book Spanish is a praiseworthy language, no matter who speaks it. There, among other things, he said that I was a word-eating animal, a word-erobic and a word-path.

In addition to being a comedian and screenwriter, you are a notable magician. Do you consider yourself a magician who makes people laugh or a comedian who does magic?

I consider myself lucky since I have been lucky enough to be able to give free rein to those two passions.

Which comedians and magicians are your references?

Juan Tamariz, Pepe Carroll, Tip y Coll, Gila, Tono, Mihura…

You perform your own texts, but you also write for other comedians. Isn’t it a little strange to see others telling jokes that you wrote? Do you find them funnier in someone else’s mouth?

It’s a bit strange but the professionalism of the screenwriter consists of knowing how to accept those little aberrations. Sometimes it is more funny in the mouths of others, other times it is less… it is always different from how one imagines it.

He also made his small but magnificent inclusion in the cinema. Are you planning to repeat?

I would like to, but it’s not easy.

You said that a suitcase is filled with “just in case”, what absurd object cannot be missing in your suitcase?

A book, a notebook and a pen.

What is the strangest thing that has happened to you in a hotel? Did you include it in a monologue?

Once in a very nice hotel in Saragossa they asked me to do an interview for their blog. That had never happened to me before. Maybe I’ll include it in a monologue.

Hotels are fascinating places. When will there be a monologue on the subject?

I have done one about the soaps, combs, sponges and toothbrushes that are in hotels. The hotel itself is too big for me.

The last time he visited us, he just had surgery on his gallbladder… viscera that he ended up auctioning in El Hormiguero. How did it occur to you?

It was a way to get something good out of the bad experience that is always going through a hospital. It occurred to me that something good could come out of that, we had to take advantage of it. We auctioned the gallbladder and raised €2,000 for the West Syndrome Foundation. By the way, a councilor from Tarazona donated them.