“Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec”, with in particular Stéphane De Groodt, Valérie Karsenti, Rayane Bensetti, and the revelations China Thybaud and Ness Merad, starts this Monday January 9 on TF1. A great success, which will appeal to both parents and teenagers.
What is it about ?
To follow her older brother, Victoire, a young teenager with a strong character, is forced to join Toulouse-Lautrec, a high school like no other which welcomes students with disabilities, such as Marie-Antoinette, a bubbly quadriplegic, or Charlie , suffering from a brain tumour.
Although refractory at first, Victoire will gradually overcome her prejudices and will discover, within the Toulouse-Lautrec high school, the friendship, love, solidarity, courage and strength of all her comrades. But also the devotion and altruism of parents and teachers. And his life will change forever.
Every Monday at 9:10 p.m. on TF1 from January 9. 6 episodes seen out of 6.
Who is it with?
As for known faces, the cast of Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec notably includes Stéphane De Groodt (The Game, Everyone at Home) in the role of Mr. Feuillate, the headmaster of the establishment which serves as the setting for the series, and Aure Atika ( For Sarah, A Man of Honour) in that of Elisabeth, Victoire’s mother.
Viewers will also recognize Valérie Karsenti (Household Scenes), Rayane Bensetti (Tamara), Joséphine Draï (Heart Plan), Charlie Bruneau (Family), Bruno Salomone (Do not do this, do not do that), Lou Bonetti (Un Si Grand Soleil) and Bérangère McNeese (HPI), who complete the cast and lend their features to members of the teaching staff and parents of students.
But the strength of this new series obviously lies above all in its characters of teenagers, with disabilities or able-bodied, wonderfully interpreted by Chine Thybaud (Endless Night) and Ness Merad, alias Victoire and Marie-Antoinette, who are undoubtedly the two great revelations from Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec. But also by Max Baissette de Malglaive, Adil Dehbi, Juliette Halloy, Aminthe Audiard, Margaux Lenot, Nolann Duriez, Hippolyte Zaremba, Abraham Wapler and Adrien Casse.
FRANCOIS ROELANTS / HABANITA FEDERATION / TF1 Valérie Karsenti and Stéphane De Groodt, alias Mrs. Lespic and Mr. Feuillate.
Well worth a look ?
Ultra popular genre across the Atlantic, with examples that can be counted in spades over the decades, such as Dawson, The Scott Brothers, Newport Beach, Gossip Girl or more recently Riverdale, the teen series has had more difficulty impose in France. Long relegated to the mornings of France 2 (Heart ocean, Lightning, Our years pension) or the afternoons of TF1 (Life before us).
With Les Bracelets rouges, launched in 2018, TF1 has however proven that a fiction featuring mainly teenagers could quite have its place in prime time on a major channel. And that you didn’t necessarily have to turn to France TV Slash (Skam France), OCS (Les Grands) or Netflix (Les 7 vies de Léa) to find nuggets of teen drama.
Building on the success of the Red Bracelets, TF1 is offering a brand new teen series this Monday, January 9, called Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec, which is also inspired by a true story, that of designer Fanny Riedberger (Clem, En Famille), who studied in the real Lycée Erea Toulouse-Lautrec de Vaucresson, which serves as the setting for these six episodes and in which high school students with disabilities rub shoulders with able-bodied high school students, who then take on the role of referents for their comrades.
FRANCOIS ROELANTS / HABANITA FEDERATION / TF1
China Thybaud, one of the real revelations of the series.
Close on paper to the phenomenal series with Azize Diabate, Audran Cattin, Esther Valding, Camille Lou and Michaël Youn – because it tells the joys and sorrows of a group of young people with disabilities or illnesses (Charlie is by example suffering from a brain tumor) who will forge an unfailing bond of friendship – Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec finally stands out fairly quickly from the Red Bracelets and manages to find its own identity.
Unlike its distant cousin, this new series does not make the handicap of its characters its central subject. Victoire, embodied to perfection by an insanely accurate China Thybaud, quickly realizes that her new comrades, on whom she does not necessarily look very tenderly at first, are teenagers like the others. Who, like her, dream of love stories and are confronted with the existential questions that all young people of this age ask themselves.
Singular, authentic and finely written, Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec manages to never fall into pathos and to make its setting – this school like no other – an extremely rich arena, where serious subjects such as school bullying or suicide among young people, and lighter moments of life, often very funny.
FRANCOIS ROELANTS / HABANITA FEDERATION / TF1
Juliette Halloy (Charlie) and Ness Merad (Marie-Antoinette) on the set of the series.
And if this series is so successful and so touching, it’s thanks to its gallery of characters more real than life, embodied for some by real students from Vaucresson high school, who sparkle and are the heart of this series. .
Like Ness Merad, a non-professional quadriplegic actress who finds her first role here and bursts the screen in the role of Marie-Antoinette, who shines with her outspokenness, her naturalness, and her killer lines. The valves fusing by the minute among this band of teenagers in which Adil Dehbi, Juliette Halloy and Nolann Duriez are also doing well.
TF1 viewers should also appreciate finding Valérie Karsenti in a role of CPE a thousand leagues from Liliane in Scènes deménages, Charlie Bruneau in a very touching score, and Stéphane De Groodt as a headmaster with a big heart, whose family intrigue, with his son himself recently disabled, offers us beautiful moments of emotion.
Alternating moving sequences that promise to move you and caustic moments of comedy, Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec, which left the last La Rochelle TV Fiction Festival with the prize for Best 52-minute series, is one of the very nice surprises of this beginning of the year 2023. A pretty ode to tolerance which is aimed at spectators of all ages and will not leave you indifferent.