Michel Roux
as Albert
Jacques Balutin
as Émile
Marie-France Mignal
as Mrs. Ourfoule
Olivier Till
as Félix Carbille
Valériane de Villeneuve
as Ms. Clonche
Daniel Royan
as Count of Chouane
Michel Chalmeau
as Dupont
Young William Shakespeare is forced to stage his latest comedy, 'Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter', before it's even written. When lovely noblewoman Viola de Lesseps auditions for a role, they fall into forbidden love — and Shakespeare's play finds a new life (and title). As their relationship intensifies, the comedy soon transforms into tragedy.
Unpolished and ultra-pragmatic industrialist Jean-Jacques Castella reluctantly attends Racine's tragedy "Berenice" in order to see his niece play a bit part. He is taken with the play's strangely familiar-looking leading lady Clara Devaux. During the course of the show, Castella soon remembers that he once hired and then promptly fired the actress as an English language tutor. He immediately goes out and signs up for language lessons. Thinking that he is nothing but an ill-tempered philistine with bad taste, Clara rejects him until Castella charms her off her feet.
We take him for someone else, a Mr. Schmitt. And one evening, at dinner, he and his wife, played by Valérie Bonneton, realize that their apartment has changed, that their business is not theirs. The play is about the perception of oneself. I love the absurd universe of its author, Sébastien Thiéry.
On vacation in the Luberon, a high ranking civil servant, in love with the good old fashioned thinking, has to put up with a bunch of troublemakers in his haven of tranquillity and prevent them from watering in circles. Wife, child and mother-in-law in the front row, brother-in-law and sister-in-law as bonus gifts. Add to that a terrible heat wave and a mother left alone in her apartment in Paris... The cocktail is boiling, even explosive... with this heat it will be hard to keep it cool.