Les Bodin's is a comic double act created in 1994 and based at Descartes. Comedians, writers and directors Vincent Dubois and Jean-Christian Fraiscinet have created the characters of Maria Bodin, a cunning and manipulative old widowed farmer in her 80s, and her gormless son Christian.
Every July for the past 19 years they have put on a big outdoor show called 'les Bodin's, Grandeur Nature' on a local farm. It has become a cult and is already sold out for this year.
The duo perform live as the characters at festivals and charity events around the country, and every so often they make a film or a television show.
I've never seen them perform, but it is clear they are madly popular in the district (at least with an older crowd -- I don't think the under 40s are so enamoured). My guess is that if you like British comedies like Mrs Brown's Boys, you would like les Bodin's if you were French speaking. I would also observe that the French taste in comedy can be remarkably unsophisticated...
Anyway, great excitement in Preuilly when it was announced all over Facebook that les Bodin's would be coming to town and casting 600 extras for their next movie. Hundreds of people duly turned up at the salles des fetes to try out as villagers, cattle herder, goat farmer, receptionists, militant ecologists, police officers, acrobatic dancers, musicians, marching girls, accordionist, tie wearing public servants, little girl and a teenage boy. Our friend Mathieu didn't even have to audition. The production team approached him at work behind the bar of his restaurant, l'Image, and asked if he'd play himself in a bar scene.
So I guess we'll go and see the movie once it's released. There will most probably be a special pre-release showing in the salle des fetes.
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