To say that his speech is rare is a euphemism. Blanche Gardin talks a lot. But only on stage. His last interview (on the radio) was over a year ago. The print media, let's not talk about it. For her last show, "Good Night White", she had not provided any promotions. No need. Crowded rooms, ultra-impactful television interventions, two Molières in two years ... Critics love it. The profession praises it. The public dubbed it. In five years, and late, she has established herself as the queen - as discreet as secret - of black humor in France.
How did the Blanche Gardin phenomenon come about? Canal + offers this Wednesday evening to discover where it all started: its very first show, "Il faut que je parle", played in a small Parisian hall between 2014 and 2015. A sharp, acidic and brilliant nugget. She exorcises her demons there, approaching quarantine. "We feel that this is not where life will take off," she says on stage, without suspecting the trajectory that awaits her. Birth of a star, birth of a style, "I have to talk to you", not filmed at the time, resuscitated into a lively spectacle under the stroke of Fabcaro's pencil.
I need to talk to you ! by Blanche Gardin hosted by Fabcaro - CANAL +
The first animated stand up is on CANAL +! "I need to talk to you" with Blanche Gardin, moderated by Fabcaro, available from June 3.
Gepostet von CANAL + am Montag, 1. Juni 2020We were burning to know behind the scenes. But also to hear it during the extraordinary period that we are living. She said yes but, true to herself, did not allow herself to be approached. Blanche Gardin - who will be found at the cinema on December 23 in "Erasing the history" of the duo Kervern and Delépine - accepted an epistolary interview, by exchange of emails.
Tens of thousands of people will discover this very first show. How was he born?
BLANCHE GARDIN. He was born in a psychiatric hospital room where I was trying to cure myself of depression, this time triggered by a breakup. The therapist who looked after me suggested I write a sort of biography, an exercise supposed to shift the point of view by recontextualization and written formalization of emotions. But the cursor must have gone too far, and jokes of unprecedented darkness came out. At the time, I discovered the shows of Louis CK (Editor's note: American stand-upper with whom she will have a private relationship thereafter) . I immediately conceived in my head a relationship of insane intensity with him. It's like I have the subtext of all of his jokes. His work allowed me to start mine as an artist. What I don't consider to have done before that.
Did the writing come easily then?
Coming out of the hosto, I decided to write it all in English and to try my luck across the Atlantic in the “real” country of stand-up. In reality, I was especially scared to death at the idea that my navel-gazing considerations did not interest the French public, the intimate Anglo-Saxon stand-up not yet being really developed in France. I asked a friend who spoke fluent English to help me translate and develop my ideas. He shared my darkness at the time, and he helped me deliver the show. A wise man ... I started doing open mic (note: open stages) in English to expats or tourists disappointed Montmartre. I was not bad, bad, but I was still taking big flaws. But I was completely panicked at the idea of going on stage in French.
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PODCAST. Blanche Gardin is the story of a punk…
When did the click come?
One day, Yacine Belhousse (Editor's note: a humorist met at the Jamel Comedy Club) convinced me to participate in a “First Times” evening. The principle is that artists must present only new material, never played elsewhere. Yacine had assured me that the atmosphere would be very warm and that all the artists would suffer the same level of stage fright. I let myself be convinced. And that evening, when I said "Good evening" in French, everything became clear. I had put a ball of 100 kg around the foot while wanting to play in English. And suddenly, speaking French, everything seemed possible to me. I sort of made a scam to myself.
Hand on the microphone, closed face, relentless tone… You had already adopted the style that would make you known later?
Alain Degois, better known as Papi (Editor's note: Jamel's first director) , then contacted me. He had offered to stage me some time before, but I didn't feel ready. I still wasn't, but I said yes . I read hundreds of pages to her, it was electrifying. I was super scared, and if he could never get me out of my stage fright, he gave me confidence in what I wanted to tell people, that it made sense to do it. One day, I said to Papi: "I am too scared, I cannot arrive by smiling on stage and by throwing an enthusiastic good evening ! "He said," Well, don't do it! Come as you are. It was thanks to him that I was able to go so sincerely on stage with this first show, to chain the darkest jokes without smiling once, except at the end to say thank you.
Why did you play it so little at the time?
Because my collaboration with my producer stopped and it was complicated at the contractual level.
Why "resuscitate" it as an animated show?
We had not made a recording. Two years later, I edited texts of this first show at First, but although having the written record made me happy, something was missing. This show had meant a lot to me, I wanted it to exist. I even plan to produce a vinyl. We had traces of audio recordings, especially passages that I made on sets to test. It was by speaking with Nadine Descoussis, who ensures the executive production of my shows, that the idea of making it a lively show came to light.
Why did you choose to work with Fabcaro?
At the same time, I offered his comics to everyone. I was a big fan. I knew Fabcaro a little bit because I had participated in an adaptation of his comic book "Zaï zaï zaï zaï". I believe that the fact that he made his characters say such enormous, tragic, pathetic, cynical things in an almost total pictorial sobriety, echoed what I was doing.
Five years later, with the trajectory that you experienced in the process, what feeling predominated when you plunge back into this first stage alone?
I wallowed a little in a kind of a little sad tenderness towards me. Like when we look at a photo of ourselves taken in a distant time, and we are appalled to think that at the time we were disgusting, when we are definitely much better on the photo than now. It is the freshness of the first draft. There is an innocence that I no longer have today in this first show. I have taken automation since. The artist is developing his business, it's classic! It is necessarily less intense today than at that time. I'm talking about the act of creation, not the result. I let the public and the critics decide if it's shit or not, each his job! I don't deny the two shows that followed, of course, but I knew a lot more about what I was doing. Over time, we see ourselves pulling the strings of our own character a bit. In this first show, we see him born.
What are your views on the extraordinary period that we have been experiencing since mid-March?
I tell myself that the world is so rotten that if we were to have a really nasty virus soon, not a baby virus like corona, and that humanity had to die out, well it would not be the end of the world! More seriously, and above all more honestly, I have nothing to say on this. We are caught in what seems to be the very logical consequence of a very long series of choices without conscience. It’s pretty sad. And it is already sad when we do not yet have before us the catastrophic social effects that this crisis will have produced. There, there ...
In a video relaying a call for donations to the Abbé Pierre Foundation in early April, you hoped that at the end of the confinement we could all applaud each other. So have we been up to the task?
There was a real surge of generosity and an awareness of the population towards the homeless. Because the terrifying injunction "Stay at home!" “Obviously resonates strangely in the head when we know that around 250,000 people in France are homeless. I relayed these calls first so that people in very precarious situations could at least buy food in the stores, because the aid decreased considerably at the start of confinement. This was very well followed and 100,000 service tickets were distributed. In addition, many people have offered to give their time without work to people who were living in this confinement in obviously dramatic conditions.
How did your commitment to this cause come about?
To say that I am engaged would be to lie. If I were hired, I would be distributing meals or organizing a demonstration to protest that having decent housing and healthy food is not a right, like education and access to care. But I let myself fall asleep by the gentle individualistic lullaby made famous by the airlines and then by the Covid epidemic: "Put your mask on yourself first and then after, if you really want to, put it on to your neighbor ”.
How did you experience this confinement?
As we had to obey something very restrictive, at the same time we were happy (we like to obey, life becomes simpler) and at the same time it left room to realize that it was not normal at all that not everyone is safe. I was a little more alert and engaged at the time. I was out on the street, talking to people on the street, bringing them food, gel, and asking if they wanted me to call an emergency service. It was arch glaucous. Even after several weeks, some people on the street were unaware of the epidemic. The streets were very dirty because the garbage collectors provided the minimum service. So many more rats, pigeons, etc. And we met half inert bodies in the middle of the sidewalks. We really went too far in horror. I hope we're going to wake up. So, not “engaged”, but “enraged”, yes.
Has the government sufficiently taken stock of the problem?
Efforts have been made: 25,000 accommodation places open but only until July 8. So still a non-lasting emergency solution. On May 15, financial assistance of 2,000 euros was given to the most vulnerable households. But it's a one shot. Not enough to applaud the government in the windows, therefore ... But not the right to say that nothing was done.
Are you worried about the future?
The Abbé Pierre Foundation campaigns for the creation of a support fund to help the poorest people continue to pay rents and expenses. If this is not done, we run into a period of massive and brutal expulsion. It's a time bomb. The date of July 8 for the closure of the 25,000 accommodation places that have been opened is very frightening for homeless people and makes associations despair. Putting all these people on the street does not make sense. And one could even say that not taking advantage of this situation to transform the attempt towards a real just long-term policy towards the poorest would be "to spoil the crisis", to use the expression that rightly used Bruno Latour (Editor's note: sociologist) when he mentioned at the start of confinement the risk that the next world would not learn any lesson from this situation.