The community of 'La que se avecina' moves to the center of Madrid

The residents of Mirador de Montepinar move.

After 12 seasons, they leave behind that urbanization that promised so many luxuries and led to so many failures, the result of the Spanish brick

of the 2000s, to move to the center of Madrid.

The facade of the stately building, Contubernio 49, which will host the emblematic characters in the new season of

,

bar

with red brick walls, which will also be the scene of many meetings.

Precisely, the gentrification of urban neighborhoods has been one of the social phenomena that the co-creator and screenwriter of the series, Alberto Caballero, has taken into account when writing the new chapters that will be released on November 18 on Amazon Prime Video (with three episodes on the day of the premiere, followed by a new one each week until the season is completed) before Telecinco premieres it free-to-air.

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Caballero explains it this way: “The city has changed a lot and this move, like the shooting space on the street, is going to give us a lot of play.

Gentrification is a real process that we wanted to capture.

In this new scenario, the characters go out on the street and can be run over by a scooter, or they have the kitchen of a Chinese delivery restaurant next to their apartment.”

In addition to replicating the process of

of cities, the move has made it possible to play with the differences in social status of the characters.

The wealthiest —the Marquesa (Mamen García) or the head of the community who is a pharmacist— live in the flats that face the street, and the "dead of hunger" —among whom are the family of Antonio Recio (Jordi Sánchez ) and a group of students—, on the ground floor or in houses that overlook the inner courtyard.

Photo of the decoration of the Marquesa's house. JUAN NAHARRO (2022-Juan Naharro Gimenez)

The introduction of new plots and characters, such as that of Félix Gómez who plays a charismatic and seductive hedonist, bring oxygen to a series that has more than 170 episodes, and which has been broadcast on television since 2007. Caballero, who is very proud of the new set, comments on the challenge of reconciling the novelties with the audience: “The public develops a strong bond with what they already know and as soon as you touch a character or change the cameras to higher resolution ones, they tell you that they liked it more as it was before, until they adapt to the new”.

Now that the series has been renewed for two more seasons, Caballero explains that his success lies in knowing how to translate the social reality of the moment with humour, something that Jordi Sánchez sums up in two words: “

customs ”.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons why the series has a growing entourage of followers.

Luis Merlo, the actor who plays Bruno and who previously worked with the creators of the series in

, is surprised by this phenomenon: “The generational change of viewers, which does not usually occur in other programs, is wonderful. .

Teenagers keep getting hooked.

Many tell me that they have grown with me.”

political incorrectness

In addition, Merlo is convinced that the series, which is politically incorrect, could not be broadcast from scratch in 2022, "because the barbarities that are said would be harshly criticized."

Gómez, who is new to the team, admits to being surprised by some terribly macho lines in his character, but Loles León, who plays Menchu, a woman obsessed with making her daughter lose weight, points out that political incorrectness is a hallmark of the series: “Everything that is happening in Spain is joked about and hot topics are said with unique grace, salt shaker and talent”.

However, the intolerance or machismo of some characters that appear in the plot to create comical situations are not always understood by viewers.

Pablo Chiapella (Amador, or

in the series) illustrates these misunderstandings: “Some kid has told me: 'Wow, when I grow up I want to be like your character', and that means they haven't understood anything.

Just because I make Amador's nonsense funny doesn't mean they're right."

The actors are aware that the youngest are the most likely to admire the caricatures that are the characters of Amador or Recio.

Petra Martínez, who plays Fina, a misanthropic and sadistic old woman, sees this on the positive side: "There are people who don't want children to see it, but it has the advantage that there are things that children don't understand , as was the case with

”.

Laura and Alberto Caballero, the creator brothers of the series, last Tuesday. JUAN NAHARRO (2022-Juan Naharro Gimenez)

Caballero downplays the issue: "In the end, what we're trying to do is make

a distorted portrait of reality for criticism, or simply for the viewer to have a good time."

During the High Middle Ages, troubadours and minstrels popularized in northern France lewd tales called

, of which

can be considered heir.

The French philologist Joseph Bédier defined them as stories in verse to make people laugh.

Although they included a moral, it was quite ambiguous and had no didactic intention.

They also mocked the archetypal characters (the priest, the bourgeois wife, the cuckolded husband) in a cartoon that was nothing more than “a mockery and a joke”, as Bédier theorized.

Martínez says that, once, a taxi driver who had depression told him that

had been a healer for him.

Sánchez adds: "I still laugh at the scripts, they're hilarious."

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