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An Interview With Jean-Daniel Broussé
It’s a grey day in Montreal when Jean Daniel Broussé picks up the phone. Yet his cheerful, French accent seems at odds with anywhere bar the sunniest climate. Even in wintry February he was warming up the stage with a ritual communion as the climax of his show (le) Pain, staged as part of 2022’s Manipulate Festival. He was equally cheery then, a natural showman excelling precisely because of his lack of artifice and enthusiastic chirpiness. Everything he does, he is determined to do “in a fun way” he says. “In all my shows I quite like to do something where people can like, read their own stories into it, without being preachy or too dramatic about it”, although he’s quick to clarify that he is in fact, “all about the drama”.
He's currently touring a “circus-slash-theatre show” Knuts , which he performed in Edinburgh in 2019. Given the joy he elicits from performing and talking about performing it’s difficult not to imagine him a short lunge away from the stage at any given time.
“I moved back to France. I lived in London for twelve years and then me and my boyfriend moved to Marseilles. That was the only thing I did over the lockdown… I was kind of hiding for a bit, it felt like a long holiday.”
It quickly becomes clear that even when resting, JD, as he enigmatically signs off his emails, is still working. “I like to have time off, so I can rest my head on it and come back to it and see it from the outside,” he says referring to the development of (le) Pain, a one-man autobiographical, dance- theatre show about choosing not to take over the bakery his family have run for generations. I thought the show was a lot of fun and am keen to hear how he think it went. His answer begins on a high: “I’m really happy” before wilting to a “I think it’s okay” then, after a moment of musing he makes some perfectionist rumblings about the show “not quite being there”.
JD has never truly left the bakery. Even his shows he treats like recipes, adding things in, taking things out, spicing things up, trying to get it just right. It’s easy to picture him as a comedian trying out variations on new material every night. In fact, stand-up comedy is one of the few art forms missing from (le) Pain.
There are videos of the family, singalongs, communion rituals, monologues and dance routines all blended together into a quasi-queer cabaret. It’s a lot. But the success and fun of the piece all rests on his shoulders. Normally a show with so many aspects might seem gimmicky but here they are all natural extensions of the man himself.
“I’m still attached to the entertaining part of the show,”he says. Even this he ties back to the bakery, this idea of performing as a public service, as hard work full of pain and early rises. The family bakery had loomed over JD for most of his life, and with it the assumption that he would naturally follow in the footsteps of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather by running it one day. Of course, it isn’t just the bakery he was worried he’d be forced to adopt, it’s the lifestyle that goes with it. Growing up he watched as the pre-dawn starts took their toll on his mother. In fact, there’s a key moment in the show where we see a recording of the song she wrote inspired by her time in the bakery. It roughly translates into English as “fuck this shitty life”.
He studied Medieval History and Modern Literature in France, but even that was viewed as a hobby, before he would take his natural place inside the bakery. He took a particular interest in Occitan, the regional language close to extinction. “My primary school was in that language, but it’s dying out,” he notes. He compares it to Welsh but given its lack of official status in France its chances of survival as a language or slice of rural culture are slim. But he’s happy to be spreading knowledge of its existence around the world and calls it “one of the great things about the show”.
After University he moved “far away” to London and studied Circus Arts, picking up part-time work managing a bar and restaurant. His father’s reaction was a simple “oh, great you’re learning to run a business.” The freedom of London allowed him to fully embrace his love of performance and the space to think about his sexuality.
“The bakery, it’s all quite trad, so I was really expecting to be rejected coming out, so I felt I had to be far away, y’know, if I were to look back on it psychologically… you construct this narrative of how it’s going to go but honestly, both my parents were totally cool about it…I told [my father] then one year later he sold [the bakery].”
When asked whether he was more nervous about coming out or telling his father he didn’t want to take over the bakery, he laughs but it’s clear the answer is the bakery. He could embrace his sexuality, whereas the bakery, his “father’s life”, as he calls it, was something that needed rejection.
But he is keen to eschew any doom or gloom, or implication that the show inspired by these events is a dreary exploration of upsetting themes or sadness. He’s even keen to quiz me about scenes and aspects, what quantities and measurements are required to bake a show that’s light yet sweet yet filling. Ever the perfectionist, he is keen to change the show up for its return this year to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. As long as he and his sense of fun remain the core ingredient, there’s no doubt that future audiences will have a treat to look forward to.
As we close the interview, I ask him, just to check, how old he is:
“Thirty-three,” he says, “just like Jesus.”
Bread. Shows. It seems, there are things destined to rise again.
Alistair Maxwell
