Abbacadabra 1983
I have already talked about the Starmania Prequel , but Michel Berger is not the only one to have had the idea of creating a musical just for the french television !
On December 21, 1983 Alain and Daniel Boublil staged Abbacadabra, one of the most bizarre projects I have ever seen ?
This show was broadcast in nine parts of 5 to 10 minutes during the Christmas holidays (and probably to dilute the bizarreness of the theme) the strangeness is quite simply that all the songs performed are only covers translated into French of the songs of the group ABBA, which makes this show the first musical of ABBA BEFORE mamma mia !!
To summarize the story :
On the day of their graduation, four children are put in detention by their principal. They are tasked with tidying up the school library in two hours. Deciding to start with fairy tales, they drop a stack of books, which causes fairy tale heroes ( Alice, Snow White, Cinderella , Aladdin ,Bluebeard , The Little Prince and Pinocchio) to appear one by one. The characters beg the children to free them from the influence of the evil witch Carabosse who has taken control of their world ...
Distribution :
Snow White : Fabienne Thibeault
The Little Prince : Daniel Balavoine
Pinocchio : Plastic Bertrand
Belle : Frida ( Anni-Frid Lyngstad )
Bluebeard / the math teacher : Maurice Barrier
Aladdin : Daniel Boublil
Cinderella : Françoise Pourcel-Boublil
Alice : Catherine Ferry
Carabosse / the principal : Marie-France Roussel
The Children : Stéphane Le Navelan, Stéphane Boublil, Clémentine Autain, Emmanuelle Pailly and Les Poppys as backing singers
Apart from Daniel Balavoine and Fabienne Thibeault, no other artists present here have ever played (and will never play again) in a musical
( I would like to apologize for the quality which is just disastrous )
if you want to see this strangeness in its entirety, the link below is a playlist with all the episodes :
La comédie musicale
Anecdotes :
the idea of mixing the universe of ABBA and fairy tales started from a simple joke made by the Boublil brothers, they had phonetically translated the title money money money as '' mon nez mon nez mon nez " ( my nose , my nose , my nose)
This approximate translation will immediately remind them of Carlo Collodi's fairy tale Pinnochio !
...
It was initially the singer Carlos who was to play the role of Aladdin, but for a simple question of time conflict he was replaced by one of the Boublil brothers
To discover more about French musicals (and adaptations around the world of abbacadabra) I invite you to take a look at my Masterlist ;)
( Last Update : 15 / 12 / 2024 ) ( gif is not mine ) The prehistory era : The First Adaptations The French Revolution of 1973 Napoleon
