2018, wiped off the map

In autumn 2017, the Magic Land Théâtre lost its subsidy, around 135,000 euros a year: “We expected not to get an increase, but not to be wiped off the map.” The answer came not from institutions but from the audience: in one year the theatre went from 12,000 to 15,000 spectators, and Zidani, Philippe Geluck, Virginie Hocq and Jean-Luc Fonck staged a benefit cabaret at the Théâtre Saint-Michel.

Rather than giving up, Patrick multiplied fronts: staging Death on the Nile in Etterbeek, a theatre workshop at Collège Saint-Michel, and turning the cellars of the Hoogvorst castle into an escape room. Which earned him this phrase in La Dernière Heure in April 2018: “Those who thought that because his theatre was deprived of subsidies, Patrick Chaboud was finished once and for all, will have their money's worth.”