Serial based on "Clochemerle"

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32677, 5 August 1971, Page 4

Serial based on "Clochemerle"

A 8.8. C. production team I and 30 actors have completed I five weeks location filming J i for a new serial based on < , "Clochemerle.” the comic [i I novel of French author |1 Gabriel Chevallier. i The serial, in nine half-ii hour episodes, to be seen on I; 8.8.C.2 early in 1972 is being i produced by Michael Mills, i 8.8.C.’s Head of Comedy. “Clochemerle” has been a i ’best-selling novel in several i (languages since it was first i i published before the Second i (World War: It tells of the ■ hilarious squabbles in a small ■ (village in the Beaujolais wine i f;rowing district when the vil- i age council, led by the mayor Piechut and his assistant Tafardel erect a : gentlemen's convenience as ar monument in the central 1i square of the village. In the serial Piechut is ' played by Cyril Cusack and Tafardel by Kenneth Griffith. Their opponents in the enterprise are Cure Ponosse, i played by Roy Dotrice and ; the village’s embittered spinster, Putet, played by Wendy Hiller, whose house unfortunately overlooks the construction. Clochemerle, as befits a village which grows some of the finest red wine in France, . is generally a happy one where young and old know how to enjoy the pleasures of a simple life. Michael Mills chose the village of Marchampt, which sits on the side of the steep vine covered hills of a remote part of the Beaujolais wine growing district to be the village of Clochemerle because its central square conformed almost exactly to the description of the village given in the novel. It has about 300 inhabitants and is virtually unchanged since 1 before the First World War. Only the signs in front of ’ the shops and bars had to ' be changed, and two concrete 1 electricity poles near the square disguised, to make the centre of the village into the Clochemerle of the novel. Nearly 100 of the villagers : took part in the filming as i extras, acting their parts s with enthusiasm. A local band from a nearby village—a rough

translation of its name would be Echo of the Vine—was used in the scenes of the official opening of the monument. Surprisingly, Michael (Mills discovered that although the band knew (many local melodies, it tasked to go home and practice La Marseillaise before recording it. During filming it was difficult to imagine, apart from the team around the cameras, that the time was ’not in fact between the wars. Many of the villagers wore costumes of the period and the British actors were indistinguishable from them. Indeed, a reporter from the Paris newspaper “Le Figaro” approached an old man who I was standing with two others and asked him how he liked .having - a film team in his ( village. The old man was in ’fact the only one of the group who was an English actor. As extras, the villagers took the official opening of the monument very seriously, spontaneously cheering the speeches, which were quite incomprehensible to them. The filming represented a huge influx of wealth and fame to Marchampt, not the least aspect which pleased the inhabitants was that it is a neighbouring and bigger village, Vaux, which claims to be Clochemerle. Among the many visitors to the village was Madame Chevallier, the widow of the author, who asked to meet each of the actors.