Thursday 9 June 2011

Bon Repos in August - Burning down the 'House'... It's a must!

We have been lucky to be in Brittany often enough at the right time of year to know that the Son et Lumiere at the Abbey of Bon Repos, in the Cotes d'Armor, during the first two weeks of August is habit forming. And, if we are over there and don't go to the event it definitely makes for an incomplete trip and some downtrodden, despairing looks when we know what we are missing. We'll do our best to see it again... When the weather is good this is one of the best experiences on the planet!


The townsfolk of Gouarec in the heart of the Cotes d'Armor hatched the plot around 25 years ago and now the 'show' (it's not a big enough word).... The French do it better... 'The Spectacle' has grown to be an important date in the local as well as national/international tourist calendar. Four hundred actors (it's several generations of those townsfolk who pull off heaven knows how many costume changes)... 50 horses, a pack of hounds; all, plus a host of unsung back-room heroes, put on a historic re-enactment of several snapshots of Brittany's past - from Stone age life, The Roman Invasion, The digging of the Nantes/Brest Canal, a Mediaeval Joust, The Dukes of Rohan at Play - engaging in a hunting party... as well as both the foundation and the destruction of the abbey itself... all of this played out in front of the abbey's laser projected facade... Not forgetting the mighty music score, voice over and sound effects... These days, whilst waiting for darkness to fall, there are also street entertainers, jugglers, buskers, bars, a mediaeval style market... It gets better every year...



Maybe it was the last time we were there... We had just packed up our picnic on a grassy bank at the side of the Nantes/Brest Canal which runs just around a hundred metres south of the abbey ruins. We joined the queue at the gate and a few hundred people waited for the signal to take their seats in the amphitheatre in front of the building and its greensward - where the action takes place. I heard an English voice just behind me. Glancing over my shoulder I saw a chap who was looking a little perplexed and asking his wife what she reckoned it was all about. "What brings you here?" I asked.
"I don't really know" he said... "We were just driving along the main road back there and there was a line of cars in front of us and crowds of people crossing the road...A bloke was waving cars off down here so we just followed them... parked up and here we are... What's it all about"? Being in the queue I thought he would have known. So I explained briefly what they were about to see and said he should stay in line so as not to miss the best experience of his holiday... "Your kids will love it".


The action starts as darkness falls at around 10:15pm. The lights go up, the music kicks in and a velvet voice, straight out of the Cointreau TV commercials, begins to let the story unfold... You don't need to have French as a first - second or even third language to pick up the thread. I get by on a smattering and logic does the rest.... Most of the action centres around a village specially built for these two weeks, around which is enacted birth and death, the seasons of the year (they even make it snow) and they grow a field of wheat so that they can harvest it... Houses burnt down during the sacking of the village by the Roman hordes, are re-thatched as action transfers to the mock castle at the other end of the 350 metre stage. A drag hunt takes place with the pack of hounds zig-zagging their way across the arena and one charmer of an animal gets lost on cue and then steals the show by finishing his solo run to tumultuous applause from a delighted audience. The finalé, as the Abbey burns down before the assembled company of 400 actors, is an ensemble of stilt walkers, tumblers, fire blowers and torch bearing townsfolk under the spell of three lead flag bearers who proudly wield the Breton (Gwenn-ha-Du) flag on ten metre poles above the heads of the patriot 'army'... There isn't a dry eye in the house!
See you there!...Look out for me. I'll be the one trying infuriatingly to get a decent photo of the action... not that it would do any good anyway, but without flash. Try that and you'll have the person next to you giving you lessons in colourful Gallic expletives and invective. Enjoy yourselves... I know we will! Oh... and by the way... that bloke and his family who didn't know what he was queueing for? We had eye contact as we were being carried out on a tide of the happy home-going Breton crowd and he gave me a beaming smile and a big thumbs up!

But don't take my word for it... Have a look at the trailer Son et Lumiere

You can book here too. BOOK TICKETS



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