The long history of collaboration between Les Tombées de la Nuit and Philippe Nicolle’s merry troop, 26,000 Couverts, continues, with this new creation that gets back to the roots of their Tournées Fournel (2000). An imaginary family of roaming performers (the Mélodrames Stutman) hit the road again to play outdoors, and this company from Dijon leaves stage writing (écriture de plateau) behind for the first time to use a piece by playwright Gabor Rassov, following an initial compact collaboration, Jacques et Mylène. Denis Lavant also gets involved in distributing this fresh take on the obsolete form of melodrama.

Véro 1ère, Reine d’Angleterre has a trailer-stage, snack shack and caravans, offering a throwback to fairground performance, but on a large scale, with around forty costumes and wigs, a happy muddle of unearthed objects and mechanical inventions. In this deliberatively deceptive fable, a theatrical and musical attraction with its machinery and backstage elements on full show, Philippe Nicolle uses the range of techniques and staging effects to breathe life into this fantastical story.

With tears, blood, massacres, wonders, excitement, astonishment, trembling, amusing anachronisms and clichés, illusions, magic and laughter guaranteed, this strange story, somewhere between a tragedy and candy floss dream, is about Véronique “who never dared imagine she could even become a manager in her local supermarket, and ends up Queen of England”, bringing our wonderful friends from 26,000 Couverts back to the heart of popular entertainment. A revival that tells volumes about the incredible vitality of this company.