“The show I’ve been dreaming of for many years”

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Florent Peyre comes to play his show “Nature” at the Théâtre de Lisieux (Calvados) Friday November 22, 2024. The comedian plays around twenty characters, members of a musical, and evokes ecology in the background. Interview.

How was this “Nature” show born?

It was born from a desire to make a show in which there is everything I like. With my co-authors, we wrote the show that I had dreamed of for many years, in which I can sing, dance, play lots of characters and talk about a subject that is close to my heart. This resulted in this show that I have been playing for 302 dates, and with which I still have fun every night!

In this show, you play 25 characters… and even animals!

I play all the members of an eco-friendly musical, one opening night. I’m the producer, the manager, the dancers… What happens behind the scenes and on stage. And indeed, we also come across animals: camels, dolphins, mice, polar bears who have picked up the southern accent because it’s 25° on the ice floe, which has become the Côte d’Azur… It’s everything I like to perform: colorful, very cartoonish characters that the stage allows.

In an era marked by stand-up, it has become very original to play characters.

At the moment, there is a lot of stand-up, indeed. This is not an exercise in which I feel very comfortable. I know how to do it, but it’s not what fulfills me the most. On the other hand, I like to play characters, engage the audience’s imagination and take them with me into a story for 2 hours.

Even if I am all alone, without props, without scenery and without costume, they see in front of them this troupe fighting to carry out this performance, they see without problem a polar bear, an Inuit granny who paddles while singing Céline Dion, or a penguin who sells donuts on the ice floe. Soliciting the imagination of the public and seeing that they go on this journey with me, artistically, that fulfills me more than making a series of jokes.

Where does your love of musicals come from? Would you like to star in one?

In 2013, I played Bobino in Spamalotdirected by PEF (Pierre-François Martin-Laval) from Robins des Bois. It was a musical comedy adapted from Holy Grail by Monty Python. It’s a bit of the trigger for my passion for musicals. From there, I worked on singing very assiduously, I discovered all the Anglo-Saxon musicals. Today it would be a great pleasure to be in another musical. If a project presents itself, I will go!

Pascal Obispo signs the music for your show. How did this collaboration come about?

We had met on several shows, and we had a good feeling. When we were writing with Matthieu Burnel and Philippe Caverivière, we saw that it was moving towards a musical comedy, and we said to ourselves: why not ask one of the popes of musical comedy in France. It was resolved in a phone call: I pitched the show to him, and he was amused.

I think it gives him a break. He had the intelligence to make Obispo a little bit caricatured by Obispo, which allows me to have even more fun caricaturing the genre. These are very clear references in the collective unconscious. Pascal’s musicals are in everyone’s ears, so the parody works all the better.

Is it complicated to make people laugh with ecology?

I know it can be a segmenting or anxiety-provoking subject. But the subject of the show is not ecology, it is the life of this troupe which struggles to bring this musical comedy to fruition. And there is ecology very present in the background, with real information. The goal is not to give a conference on ecology, it is really to put on an entertaining show. This allows us to approach this rather serious subject with a laugh, because we have to laugh at everything, and people can have fun and leave with a few ideas in mind, and why want to change some bad habits.

Have you always been sensitive to ecology?

I have always been very sensitive to nature, because I grew up in the countryside, then by the sea. To ecology, much later, because my parents are not from a very connected generation eco-friendly. Now they are more so thanks or because of me! It came 10 or 15 years ago, while reading a book by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, then a book by Cyril Dion, which described the apocalypse. Little by little, I realized that it was not possible for me to do nothing, on my own scale. There are things that are complicated to change in my life, but others that I can do.

In Paris, I only travel by bike: at the moment, it’s raining buckets, and I still cycle 40 minutes in the rain to go filming. No longer eat meat, buy in bulk, in season… And do this show, which is also a form of activism, even if the word is a bit strong: over the 4 years of operation of this show, how many times Did I tell my story to spectators who were listening to me? How many people have read the articles or interviews I have given? It’s also a way to spread this message.

Friday November 22 at 8:30 p.m., at the Lisieux theater. Prices: full €36, reduced visibility €18.

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