Issue No.26

Musketeers, Romans, Vikings, magic
There are several full scale shows at Puy du
Fou covering different eras of French history
from the Romans to the early 20th century. I
started my first day with musketeers at the
Mousquetaire de Richelieu show which
takes place inside a monumental theatre –
where you’ll see the world’s largest stage
curtain. From the very start the audience are
drawn in with a warm up act that has
everyone cheering, there are sword fights
and flamenco dancing in this swashbuckling
show but the real stars for me are the pure
white dancing horses, so beautiful they
bought tears to my eyes. And when the
entire stage, 2,500m₂, fills with water and
sprinkling fountains – you won’t believe
your eyes.
Then it was on to meet the Romans. I
walked down a dusty track to enter a fullsized
Gallo-Roman coliseum which has an air
of authenticity that I really didn’t expect. A
Roman guard appeared, the crowd boo’d.
When the gladiators appeared there were
wild cheers. The show is about a Roman
guard who falls in love with a slave girl and
becomes a gladiator. It involves herds of
ostriches, geese, camels and even big cats. In
one scene, a wagon full of slaves is covered
with tarpaulin and a tiger, yes a real one,
enters the top of it followed by the sound of
screaming. Don’t worry no humans are
harmed!
When the gladiators fight and stab each
other, there’s plenty of fake blood flowing.
There are chariot races complete with
crashes. As I said, this isn’t Disney. It doesn’t
pretend to be the real thing, it’s not
pretentious, but it is marvellously realistic
where it can be! The crowd loved it. Kids
were jumping up and down giving the
thumbs up and thumbs down. Brilliant.
The Viking show involved a burning boat and
fabulous horse riding skills. There were
trained wolves, and an astonishing 20m long
boat rising from the water.