“‘Johnny, free in my head’, it’s a film, but in the theater”

A show about Johnny Hallyday directed by Éric Bouvron, where imitation, comedy and song intertwine. Interview.

Objectif Gard: To begin, let's go back to the genesis of this show, from a Johnny fan side to the point of wanting to revive it?

Didier Gustin : In fact, I'm a bit like everyone else, my life has been studded with Johnny's songs from my childhood until his death and still today. I found that when he died, there was a national tribute, but that the media tribute was a little light for a star like him. So I said to myself that if I couldn't do a TV show, I could do a show, and I came up with the idea of ​​a Johnny who doesn't want to die, and who comes into my head to put together a show with all his friends. I spoke about it to Éric Bouvron, who is a long-time friend, a director who has had several Molière roles. We come from two very different worlds, him on a cultural side, and me more on a has-been side. He came home, and it took us a year and a half to write the show.

You said the word, has-been, you play it quite a bit in that regard. By reviving Johnny, are you reviving yourself, or at least your career?

I read a sentence in a newspaper, which I repeat, which said that with this show, we resurrect each other. Didier Gustin resurrects Johnny, and vice versa.

Johnny has been imitated a lot, not just by you, to the point that sometimes you have the feeling that you are imitating an imitator imitating Johnny. How do we approach this imitation in 2024? Shall we renew it?

No, we imitate it as we imitated it before. What's fun today is to imitate him as he was: a joking guy, super nice, generous.

Did you know him?

Not at all, I just met him once. But when we put this show together, I poured over the biographies, read the articles, listened to interviews with him and others who talked about him, and every time we dug, we found only good things, or incredible anecdotes. You shouldn't tell him: “Hey, you have a nice motorbike”, otherwise he would give it to you. He was an extremely generous person.

There is still a performance aspect to this show.

Yes, but that's not the point. The subject is the story of this road movie between Johnny and me. It is the history, the musicians, and the imitation which supports the point. In this sense, there is a performance in the show, the show is not a performance in itself.

“We are on a kind of UFO, halfway between the concert, the theater, the musical”

More broadly, how do we approach an imitation show in stand-up time? We see less of them than before, imitators are less popular.

Completely. The formula that I use in this show is to tell a real story of friendship, which is 1h40 long. Moreover, spectators often tell me: “we loved your film… er, your show”. It's the way it's staged, Éric Bouvron directs in a way that engages the public's imagination, and when we go out, we don't know if we've seen a film or a play. We are no longer in French theater, we are closer to Caubère than to stand-up. Stand-up is so far from that, it's: I go on stage, I take a microphone and I talk nonsense, without story. The trend seems to be moving, we see Arthus, who is a huge hit, with stand-up where there are still sketches in it. I think stand-up is very good, but it doesn't show the qualities of a comedian, it just shows that he's funny. Laughter is nice but it doesn't last, it's not an emotion. What people like is to be moved, touched, there has to be a real story behind it.

Let there be substance.

That's it, and let the bottom be good. What we wanted to do was a film, but in the theater. So there is music, with musicians who also act. We are on a kind of UFO, halfway between a concert, a theater, a musical.

This show is already running, have you already received positive feedback?

We only have positive feedback, even from bikers, the biker group that Johnny founded with his bodyguard. There are 15,000 of them in France, the boss, Joe, came with the biggest Johnny collector in France, and they loved the show, and they have been advertising it ever since.

It's validation.

Yes, it's a validation, and what's also interesting is to see the audience from Versailles, who came to the Bartabas stables as part of the month of Molière, people who came only for the theater, we played two times and the audience was in delirium at the end. It's a show for all generations, and whether we like Johnny or not, whether we know him or not, it doesn't change anything because there is a story, we're telling something.

“A has-been is an artist between two successes”

You are going to play at home, a few kilometers from home, is that a special feeling?

I'm happy, Lara Mauger (the organizer of Toqués du laughter, Editor's note) is doing me a favor by inviting me to the festival. I wanted to play in this room, but it's complicated. But thanks to her and the mayor, I'm finally playing at l'Ombrière. It's a satisfaction to be able to play in good conditions, finally at home.

This show will tour Paris in January at the Passy theater. And Avignon?

Yes we have the project, we are on it. The dates are starting to come. As it's been a long time since I've been here, it's the has-been side, you almost have to prove again that it's good. People can say: “he's an old thing who's going to sing Johnny, forget it”, and when they come they say it's great, so word of mouth spreads nicely. It's slowly snowballing, we have a good forty dates planned, and I think we'll be playing it for three or four years.

Are you going to end up no longer being a has-been then?

I have a formula, I say that a has-been is an artist between two successes. Johnny was a has-been, in his career there were times when he looked for himself, and then he came back with another album, and that is valid for many. That's the great thing about this job, is that overnight you can change careers, because either you've created something or someone thinks of you, and off you go again. This is why we must be wary of the has-beens, because often they are the ones who will count tomorrow.

“Johnny, free in my head”, by Didier Gustin, directed by Éric Bouvron, Wednesday November 6 at 8:30 p.m. at the Ombrière d'Uzès. Ticket office here.