An Englishman in Strasbourg

If you’ve lived in France for any length of time, you can’t have helped but hear this little ditty once or twice during your daily routine; because it (Le Brio by Californian rock group ‘Big Soul’) is played on French radio at least ten times a day, and it is one of those tracks you can’t help wiggling to when it comes on, even though, yes, it is in French.

Only Supertramp’s Take a look at my girlfriend seems to enjoy similar exposure on the airwaves (hard to see why such a mundane and dated track is still so popular in France, particularly seeing as it is in English!)

Quite why an American rock band decided to sing in French I have no idea - but it’s a classic, and worthy of it’s regular play slot a la radio. The lyrics are pretty meaningless - “I prefer Rock” being the underlying message. Heck, you probably know it already, but DJs rarely bother to tell you what they’re playing, so here you are - now you know.

I have included the original video below for your enjoyment.

Ready? Un, deux, trois, quatre …

I am in the fortunate position of occasionally being able to benchmark French Television programming against contemporary British fayre. And I am afraid to say that they are both as bad as each other. Indeed the same could be said of popular music in both countries, but I would never dare to say so - for fear of sounding like an old fart.

There is one glimmering light on French TV however, a programme which can be enjoyed four nights a week on TF1. It’s a fast-paced, never-a-dull-moment, feast-for-the-eyes extravaganza factual programme (in French of course). The downsides are - it’s rarely more than two minutes long, and the show’s presenter occasionally goes off on holiday. BUT without a doubt the weather report with Evelyne Dheliat has to be the best show on TV, no question!

Glorious Evelyne hits the screen like she’s on amphetamines; and her eloquent verbal diarrhoea is accompanied by a presentation style that is all at once vivacious, confident, sexy, energetic, enthused and very very French.

Like newsreader Claire Chazal, Evelyne is no spring chicken, but she manages to dress with such carefree style that you can forgive her Judith Chalmers like complexion as she shimmies and dances around the screen.

Evelyne makes my day, Monday to Thursday. I don’t recall any British weather forecaster having quite the same affect, expect perhaps for Ian McCaskill, who’s “Hello” was usually the highpoint of the forecast.

So would Evelyne’s style work in the UK? Decide for yourself:

There is a family game, which I knew fondly as a child as ‘Consequences’, the equivalent title of which this side of the channel is rather macabre: Exquisite corpse.

Essentially ‘exquisite corpse’ (or cadavre exquis in French) refers to a method art-form by which collaborators add to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule or by being inspired the previous person’s contribution.

Last year I saw a show at the Kafteur of the same name without really understanding the title. Now I understand the title it is clear that the creators of ‘Cadavres Exquis‘ developed the show in this rather unconventional manner, while at the same time using the title itself as the inspiration for its theme: death.

Before you get too depressed it is worth knowing that the creators in question, Jean-Luc Falbraird and Etienne Bayart, are top-drawer comedians. The result then is a show that is dark, side-splittingly funny but above all - surprising.

Why am I telling you this now? Well, it is one of the few professional comedy productions you’ll be able to see in Strasbourg this year that are described as ‘quasiment sans parole’ (practically without words) - so if your French is still sub-fluent this is your one chance to go and have a right good giggle for a few Euros.

The show kicks off on Thursday 22nd May and runs until Saturday 31st. You can buy tickets at FNAC or on the door. See you there.