In the same vein, is “Lycée Toulouse Lautrec” too close to the series “Les Bracelets rouges”? Fanny Riedberger, the creator of the new TF1 fiction, reacts to this comparison.
Broadcast every Monday evening on TF1, the Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec series, inspired by the true story of its creator and producer Fanny Riedberger, follows the adventures of Victoire (China Thybaud), a teenager resistant to change who is forced to integrate Toulouse-Lautrec, a high school like no other where able-bodied students and students with disabilities rub shoulders.
The series, which notably counts Stéphane De Groodt, Valérie Karsenti, Rayane Bensetti and Ness Merad in its cast, won over the public as soon as its first episodes were broadcast on January 9 and got off to a very good start on TF1, with in particular excellent scores on targets.
However, some Internet users have not failed to point out on social networks the resemblance that exists between Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec and another successful series of the channel: Les Bracelets rouges, which will soon return in a brand new version with a renewed cast. .
A rapprochement which does not really surprise Fanny Riedberger, who wrote the series and co-directed it, but which she does not find really justified.
“Frankly, if they say about us, ‘It’s the new Red Bracelets’, I’m not going to take it too badly because that’s all the harm I wish for us, given the success of the Red Bracelets. But I think it’s are two very different series, in so many ways.”entrusts to our microphone the one who was notably screenwriter and showrunner of En Famille.
FRANCOIS ROELANTS / HABANITA FEDERATION / TF1
“Already, Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec is not a hospital series”continues Fanny Riedberger. “It’s not even a series about disabilities. It’s a series of high school students, playground students, high school students with problems. And some are disabled. But we are very far from the Red Bracelets, which was mainly about the disease, although I understand the comparison”.
“And then, let’s not forget that it’s kids with disabilities who play the characters. It’s a real particularity of Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec. It must be emphasized because I am very proud of it”.
Indeed, around Chine Thybaud and the confirmed actors who portray the teachers and parents of pupils in the new TF1 series, most of the teenagers are interpreted by actors with disabilities, the vast majority of whom are non-professionals. A real added value, which contributes to the authenticity of this fiction, and which required a long casting process.
“We discussed a lot with associations, the casting was quite long”says Fanny Riedberger who herself studied at the Toulouse Lautrec high school in Vaucresson. “I had everything to hand, because the casting was done largely within the real Vaucresson high school. But what took a long time was that we needed there to be a real chemistry, a magic that operates between them. Finding good actors was not enough. There were many casting stages, during which we tested the young people in groups of two, three, then nine, to see if the magic took”.
A magic which, clearly, shines through on the screen and which viewers will be able to find in the last two episodes of the first season of Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec this Monday January 23 at 9:10 p.m. on TF1.