Excluded. The Bodin’s: how were the characters of Maria and Christian Bodin born?

Before wrapping up their Zénith tour, Vincent Dubois and Jean-Christian Fraiscinet return to television for a special Bodin’s evening. Thursday April 27, 2023, the show Full-scale is broadcast on M6. The opportunity for Tele-Leisure to come back, with the interested parties, on the birth of their characters.

“I started with song. I was a singer and guitarist in cabarets, restaurant-shows, café-theatres. Between two songs, I started putting down my guitar and bringing to life characters that I had met when I was a child“. Nothing predestined the young Vincent Dubois to become the octogenarian Maria Bodin in a show that has since become cult. Especially since he was destined for other professions, far from the theater boards and the world of glitter. And yet. Thursday April 27, 2023, the show Full-scale is broadcast on M6, a few days before the end of a national tour of the Zenith. The opportunity for Tele-Leisure to return with Vincent Dubois and Jean-Christian Fraiscinet to their Bodin’s characters and their creation.

“As we had fun, we decided to continue”

“The character of Maria is a lady who inspired her. I had the honor of raising her after a bicycle accident when I was a paramedic. It was in the 80s, 85s”, explains Vincent Dubois. It is he who is at the origin of Bodin’s. For several years, he will perform alone the character of Maria, the 87-year-old matriarch, on stage. Until his impromptu meeting with Jean-Christian Fraiscinet in the early 90s. “We met at the Villard-de-Lans festival. Jean-Christian was playing in another duo. During this festival, they had set up a draw to make improvisation matches between the actors who participated. It was fate that brought us together. We were drawn, and as we had fun, we decided to continue”, says the former paramedic. The pair will then decide to build a real show, the most famous version of which was born in 2005 in Touraine. “We were already playing Bodin’s as a duo and we had the idea of ​​taking our characters to a real farm, and it continues. We play it every year, again this year! It’s a phenomenon, and it’s full from one year to the next when there are 20,000 places”explains the interpreter of Christian Bodin.

“What brings us closer to our characters is our rurality”

Both play very distinct characters. So distinct that it is impossible for them to interchange them. “We thought about it a few times for fun, but no. These are characters that are camped. These are subtle compositions that require a lot of work. It’s well distributed like that”declares Vincent Dubois to Tele-Leisure. The roles of Maria and Christian are now anchored in them, the force of habit… without sticking to their skin. “We necessarily put things from us when we interpret a character. But there it’s really compositions, both for Vincent and for me. Especially since Vincent plays an 87-year-old grandmother”, insists Jean-Christian Fraiscinet. His friend, meanwhile, recalls that their respective life experiences still influence their characters and the story they tell. “Both of us come from the countryside. We had the same childhood. What brings us closer to our characters is our rurality and the good sense of the people of the land. A certain philosophy quite close of nature and of men”.