French TV

A couple of intriguing events for TV lovers have popped up on my radar recently.

Long-time readers will remember that for five years, the Institut Français organised an annual French/UK TV festival called ‘Totally Serialized‘. Some of you might even have won tickets to it on this ‘ere blog. However, there wasn’t one this year, since Totally Serialized is going to become a series of ongoing events throughout the year. 

The first of these is a showing on 26 April at 6.30pm at Ciné Lumière in London of France 2’s Le Repenti (Reborn), which is being made available on Walter Presents (US readers can get it through Amazon). It stars Engrenages (Spiral)’s Bruno Debrandt as Alexis, who six years after he was left for dead, burned and wounded by his best friend Victor whom he betrayed, returns to Le Havre to work undercover at Victor’s docks. After significant reconstructive surgery and a changed identity, he is unrecognizable but struggles to stay away from his ex-family.

As you do.

Debrandt will be there on stage in conversation with Walter himself, preceding the showing of episode one. It’s worth noting that it’s actually a two-part telemovie, originally broadcast in 2010, so you’ll only be getting half the story and given that episode one is 90 minutes long and the event’s supposed to finish at 8.15pm, that sounds like about 15 minutes of chat.

Unembeddable trailer is at the Walter Presents web site. Bookings here, with tickets £12 for adults.

Elsewhere, for fans of old UK TV, on 22 April at 7pm at the Museum of Comedy, also in London, Annette Andre will be reminiscing about her career, particularly Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), but also A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum and The Benny Hill Show. There’ll also be a chance to meet her afterwards. Tickets are £17 each.