Picture a fairground booth transformed into a theatre stage, swamped by hundreds of soft toy puppets, two lecturers and an electric guitarist. This is the unlikely backdrop for Thierry Bédard’s latest theatrical creation, based on the work of philosopher and contemporary ethologist Vinciane Despret, who specialises in animal rights. In this study into the behaviour of animals and humans, soft toys and hilarious machinery representing chimpanzees, monkeys, sheep, wolves, parrots and crows soon overpower this lecturer in “emotional ecology” and her assistant. Long Live the Animals is funny, festive, ironic, skilfully educational, sharp and uplifting, thanks to the actors’ brilliant performances and the subtle humour of Vinciane Despret’s writing.

Director Thierry Bédard drew inspiration from the contemporary writings of Belgian philosopher and ethologist Vinciane Despret (from the Universities of Liège and Brussels) to create this fantasy fairground attraction in an unlikely booth inhabited by some one hundred soft toy animals. Long Live the Animals focuses on key philosophical questions (do animals suffer, do they experience fear, uncertainty, hesitation, doubt?), in the form of an academic lecture by a philosopher (Sabine Moindrot), with the fumbling help of her assistant (Julien Cussonneau) and an electric guitarist and singer (Jean Grillet).

This game of mirrors turns human and animal societies upside down, challenging our perception of intelligence, socialising and empathy, as chimpanzee, monkey, sheep, wolf, parrot and crow soft toys take over the stage while the actors quote anthropologist Deborah Rose, primatologist Thelma Rowell and biologist Bernd Heinrich. This new creation by the Notoire company is funny, off-the-wall, ironic and as sharp and subtle as Vinciane Despret’s writing. Its educational content and humour is found in the intense confrontation between humans, non-humans and animals.