“At -35 degrees on the back of a yak”: we tell you about Nawell Madani’s surreal and hilarious show at the Colisée de Chartres

A month after the inauguration of the Coliseum by Michel Polnareff, Nawell Madani came, Saturday October 12 in the evening, to offer Chartrains the first performance of her new one-woman show, Everything short.

Needless to say, the atmosphere was radically different. The audience, rather young, initially welcomed Rym with kindness, who came, in the first part, to show off part of her show during a very short performance, “not even a trailer, just a commercial break,” she laughs.

Theater, Paris Paillettes show or even the return of culture to the Colisée, in Chartres

Then Nawell Madani arrives at 9 p.m.… in a bathrobe. She almost apologizes. Herbal tea in hand, she calls her fans to witness and laments that she is reaching the canonical age of… 44 years old.

“Wikipedia was wrong about my age, they say that I am only 40 years old! But no…”, she laments, before pointing out: “When a man reaches this age, they say that he has charisma, but I’m just a broken woman.”

A large number of themes covered

This somewhat long introduction serves as a prelude to a very ambitious show lasting more than 2 hours – perhaps a record in the genre – where the comedian mixes a very large number of themes, timeless or current, from mental load to cosmetic surgery, including sexism, racism and many other subjects that come together without one expecting it.

A comedy show canceled at the last moment in Chartres

In fact, Nawell Madani takes us on her quest to preserve the couple she has formed with actor Djebril Zonga for twenty years. He is not necessarily spared – “when he arrives in the kitchen, he still does not know where the forks are kept” – but she reserves a few barbs… for herself. “At first, in the old photos, I looked like his girlfriend, today, I look like his drug dealer.”

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Obviously, with such a long show, there are some drops in pace, but they are quickly compensated by an extraordinary energy and very modern writing that hits the mark.

She says, for example, that she hesitated a lot before agreeing to participate in Meet in unknown landnotably because “she hates the cold”. Bad luck, she found herself in Mongolia, “at -35 degrees, on the back of a yak”.

Painful PMA journey

From this experience, which initially appears both hilarious and traumatic, she learns a life lesson… which she tries to reproduce within the walls of her Parisian apartment. Not easy…

We then finish with a lump in our throat, when Nawell Madani recounts his painful PMA journey (Editor’s note: medically assisted procreation), which ultimately results in the birth of her child, to whom she writes a letter to give him the courage to move forward in life. Here, laughter gives way to emotion…

Rémi Bonnet