Comment: France's rural entertainment is real, raw and - usually - outstanding

There is no multiplex for miles, let alone a theatre or comedy club. The night club burned down during Covid. Nevertheless, our small market town in rural Nièvre still manages to pack quite a punch on a Friday night.

Latterly, entertainment listings have included a dance show in which performers were conjoined by bungee cords in their hair; acrobats on a protractible metal tube; acrobats in a giant metal ring; and something vaguely occult with fire, performed in the school playground. 

To that, we can add the itinerant cinema which screens monthly at the abbey. Do not expect superhero franchises or a ‘Barbenheimer’ double-bill, these are almost exclusively home-grown movies and documentaries. 

Often there is a local connection, such as with l’Homme d’argile, the slow-burner about an heiress, a one-eyed caretaker, bagpipes and sexually charged clay sculpting, which was shot on our doorstep in the Morvan.

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France's street art tradition

Before moving to France, neither love nor money would have enticed me to watch any of these – except ironically. But I stopped sniggering years ago. For a start, no one else was. French regard for the arts is so wildly sincere, you only end up feeling churlish.

Secondly: while some performances still are not necessarily my cup of tea, they are at least more real, more raw and so more inherently interesting than the majority of entertainment I consume via a screen back at home. Most are outstanding.

I am talking mainly of street arts (arts de la rue), the movement that burgeoned in France in the 1970s against a backdrop of political and social unrest. 

Its pioneers wanted to snatch back theatre from a small elite and make it, once again, the beating heart of a community. 

They believed it should be accessible to all – but also playful, political, and a pick ’n’ mix of disciplines, from visual arts to music, patter to circus skills.

The result is sometimes unpolished, never boring and often pure magic. 

Over the past five decades, it has become an integral part of many communes’ cultural calendars via touring shows, festivals or by performers deepening ties with regions through residencies and long-term collaborations. This is certainly the case where I live. 

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Thomas Jolly's Olympic magic

Last summer, international audiences got a taste of it in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. 

Thomas Jolly, the man charged with masterminding the show, was interviewed by Vogue in advance. 

The magazine noted that despite growing up in a Normandy village “so small it is named after its only street”, Jolly had hugely benefitted from France’s post-war drive to decentralise theatres. 

Rather than being forced to head for Paris, his theatre studies took him no further than Brittany. When he set up his own troupe, it was back in Normandy. 

No surprise that the motto of the Olympic ceremony was Games Wide Open.

As Hollywood literally burns and the spectre of AI looms over the global entertainment industry, challenging hegemony and championing the human has never felt more urgent.

Perhaps it’s time to take a leaf out of La France profonde’s playbook: imbed more arts in the community, ramp up the creativity and, dare I say it, embrace the bungee cords.

 What is the local cultural scene like where you live in France? Do you participate in any events yourself? Let us know at letters@connexionfrance.com