Recently, Chicago stand-up comedian Hannibal checked in with us from his jaunt overseas. As the Bastion reported earlier, Hannibal's determination to get more stage time in New York City led to a spot in the New Faces showcase at the Montreal Comedy Festival, which brought him to the attention of producers who offered him a sweet trip to Europe/spot on tv deal. Sounds like a nice excuse to skip out of a few days of early Chicago winter. Hannibal's report on his experiences:

"The Comedy Factory taping went well. I got there on Sunday the 19th after a seven hour flight. The show was being filmed in Rotterdam on Monday the 20th. We did a warm up show in Tilburg on Sunday night at a venue called 013. The place was packed with more than 700 people. The host of the show was Jorgen Raymann who has a weekly late night television show in Holland, so the audience went crazy for him.

"Performing there was intimidating initially because I wasn't sure how the crowd would react to my material in a different country. It was really interesting was that Jorgen and a couple other comedians perfomed entirely in Dutch. It was cool to see the crowd react strongly to comedy in two languages. The show was a lot of fun and it was really exciting that the material went well.

"Monday and Tuesday were the days of the taping at the Prinses Theater in Rotterdam. Three separate shows were filmed and I was on the second show on Monday. There were packed crowds and it was a really nice theater. Also on my show was Laurie Elliot from Canada, and Rachid Larouz from Holland. Each of the six tapings had at least one Dutch comedian. I did my set and I did basically the same material that I do here and it was a fun time. I did a 9 minute set and they're going to edit it down to six. The show airs in Holland in January. It was definitely a lot of fun doing TV for the first time and it was pretty cool to do it in Holland. I got to meet several other comedians from the States, England, and Holland. I went to Amsterdam for a week and performed once at the Comedy Cafe. All in all it was an excellent experience and I would love to do it again in a couple of years."