Planted on the Opal Coast, from where it observes the neighboring British shores (30 kilometers as the crow flies), the castle of Hardelot (Pas-de-Calais), with its light stones buttressed against each other on the others, stands out in a green landscape where the national forests of Hardelot and Ecault extend as far as the eye can see. Built in the 19the century by an Englishman on the ruins of a medieval fortress, it is topped with a Franco-British flag and decorated, on its lawns, with a circular wooden theater.
The whole became, in 2009, the Cultural Center of the Entente Cordiale. A desire of the Pas-de-Calais department, which alone finances its lifestyle: 1.1 million euros in credits in 2024. This is enough for the director, Eric Gendron, to intertwine, in a binational programming, exhibitions, concerts, open-air cinema, workshops for schools or theater shows.
“There are around twenty of us permanent staff. With the exception of January, we never close. From the British Jazz Festival to Medieval Spring, including Shakespeare Nights, each month is dedicated to a theme. Our mission is to be attractive on a tourist and cultural level”explains the boss, who is sorry, bunch of keys in hand, about the singular nature of the visit, this Tuesday, May 7. “The storms that ravaged the region did not spare us. Because of water infiltration, we have to shelter the works. »
On site, the teams carefully move oil paintings, sculptures and ornate furniture. A marble skull awaits its time, as does the cannon offered by Queen Victoria. The smoking room, the library, the dining room, the huge wooden staircase: not a square meter is not secure. Hikers will have to be content, for a few months, to admire the castle from its gardens.
Replica of the London Globe
Even the circular theater, another asset (and not the least) of this eclectic site, has suffered the vagaries of the weather. The tall bamboos surrounding it have been removed, to avoid the risk of them falling on passers-by. The building remains no less impressive. And for good reason: rising from the ground in 2015, it is the replica of the Globe Theater, which, in London, hosted Shakespeare’s plays.
It is therefore here that the steps of Irina Brook have obviously been directed, for whom the work of the Elizabethan is a Source of permanent youth (she adapted and directed Romeo and Juliet, Storm !, The dream). The Franco-British artist is not for nothing in the construction of this ecological building: “With the architect Andrew Todd, we dreamed of it as a cross between the London Globe and the Parisian Bouffes du Nord. Originally, it was to be located on the banks of the Seine, near Ris-Orangis [Essonne]. I withdrew from the project, and it was finally on the Côte d’Opale that Andrew built it. »
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