Kaamelott

"Kaamelott" is a French comedy television series which parodies the Arthurian legend. Broadcast on M6 in France since 2005 in prime time (8:30PM to 8:40PM), on TSR2 in Switzerland, on Club RTL in Belgium and on Historia in Canada, each season has attracted more viewers, with records reaching about 5 million viewers each evening.

While the series takes place in the 5th century, it uses modern language and situations to create a humorous view of the Arthurian legend, even in the fifth season (or "book") when the mood becomes darker and more dramatic as Arthur's kingdom begins to disintegrate.

The whole series is written and directed by Alexandre Astier, who also stars as King Arthur and composes all the music for the show.

The series was preceded in 2003 by a short movie, "Dies iræ", that the show's creator, Alexandre Astier, wrote and directed." Dies irae" featured mostly the same cast as the TV series and followed the same concept. It was used to pitch the idea of the series to the M6 television network, at a time when M6 was looking to replace another successful short TV series, "Caméra Café". However, "Kaamelott" exceeded "Caméra Café"'s audience only three weeks after broadcasting started.

Episodes

The episode format for "Kaamelott" is very short. Unaired pilot episodes attempted a six-minute format that was rejected by the television network. Broadcast episodes from season 1 to 4 lasted about three and a half minutes, the same as "Caméra Café". A season is made up of a hundred of these short episodes, and originally seven such seasons were planned by Astier and M6. A season is referred to as a "livre", which means "book", in the promotional material and DVD covers.

The episodes were aired two by two for seasons 1-4 five days a week from Monday to Friday. The week's full ten episodes are aired on the Saturday of that same week. This makes a season one hundred episodes, but only ten weeks long. A week's worth of episodes is about 35 minutes, which is comparable to the American one-hour network format of 44 minutes or to the British half-hour format of 30 minutes. Each episode features a teaser, opening titles, three acts, closing titles and a tag, like an American 22 minute sitcom episode. Season 1 aired in Spring 2005, 2 in Fall 2005, 3 in Spring 2006, and 4 in Fall 2006.

Season 4 was the first season that really told a story. Whereas in the earlier seasons one could watch the short episodes in any order, in Season 4 more than half the episodes were connected to a plot. Season 5 has several intertwining plots which are presented chronologically through the whole season. The first half of it was aired in Spring 2007 as two 52-minute episodes followed by 5 weeks of 7-minute episodes presented on the same schedule as the earlier seasons. The second half followed the same format in the Fall of 2007. Season 6 was not shot until Summer of 2008 and probably will not reach TV screens until 2009; it is planned as a series of 40-minute episodes. Season 7 was canceled by M6.

Astier hopes to follow the television series with a trilogy of films about Arthur. He has said that Season 6 prepares the audience for the movie series.

As the series goes on, there are more and more exteriors. Seasons 1-4 take place almost entirely in or around the fortress of Kaamelott, and the exteriors are filmed near Lyon, in France. Parts of Seasons 5 and 6 were filmed in Brittany, and some of Season 6 was filmed in Rome at the Cinecittà Studios on the sets built for HBO's Rome (TV series).

Content

The show is above all a comedy and made to look like a satire, but in many ways it follows the old Arthurian legends very faithfully, including such traditional characters as Lancelot, Guinièvre, Bohort (Bors), Perceval, Merlin, and the Lady of the Lake, as well as the Holy Grail and the sword Excalibur. Like all Arthurian authors, Astier uses these characters and objects and the stories associated with them in his own way, developing humor and suspense. The stories sometimes include serious reflections on themes like war, patriarchy, capital punishment and bureaucracy, among many others.

The main comical device of the series is to explore the distance between the Arthurian legend and the actual day-to-day operations of Arthur and his knights as they seek to find the holy Grail. Arthur is surrounded by incompetent, lazy, and/or stupid knights, who fail most of their missions or who end up finding but then discarding invaluable artifacts, not understanding their importance for their quest.

The lead character, King Arthur of Britain, has very progressive ideas, and tries to abolish the slave trade, torture, and capital punishment. His ideas often clash with those of his his father-in-law and minister of justice, Leodagan, played by Alexandre Astier's real-life father, Lionnel Astier.

Even the idiotic characters, however, are given qualities that explain Arthur's patience with them, and make them more likable and interesting to the viewer. For instance, Perceval of Wales first appears in medieval literature in the work of Chretien de Troyes as the destined Grail Knight, but also a clumsy and foolish boy. In "Kaamelott", Perceval is the least intelligent and least confident of the knights. He is not sure of his own name. He fails almost every mission he is trusted to undertake. He is illiterate, cannot understand the concept of a map, and thinks North and South are relative concepts. But he loves and is extremely faithful to Arthur. In Book 5, Arthur puts Excalibur back into the stone as a way of showing challengers to the throne, coming from all over the country to try to take the magical sword back out again, that only he is the rightful king. Some of Arthur's knights and allies do try their luck with the sword, but Perceval refuses and convinces his fellow knight Karadoc to skip his attempt as well. Perceval has a genius for numbers which parallels a common stereotype of an [autistic savant] : he knows the number of stones in the castle walls, but cannot understand basic date or day of the week arithmetic. He dreams of space travel and at one point tries to explain the theory of special relativity to Arthur. He is the only character besides Arthur for whom Excalibur glows when it is picked up.

The series also gives humorous (but always possible) explanations for historical facts. For instance, "Kaamelott" explains the creation of the national attire of Scotland, the kilt, by a misfortune of the king of Caledonia (modern Scotland). His armor's legs rusted when he fell into some water. It turns out to be a rule that a knight of the Round Table must wear either full body armor or his national attire, so the king of Caledonia wraps a cloth around his waist and declares it his country's official attire.

The plot of the series up through Season 5 involves a conflict between King Arthur and his best knight, Lancelot. This begins with a few episodes in Season 1 in which we see that Lancelot is in love with Arthur's queen, Guinièvre. In Season 2 Lancelot begins to challenge Arthur; he feels that if Arthur were an effective king, justice would have been established and the knights of the Round Table would be great warriors instead of the clowns they actually are. In Season 3 Lancelot decides to go live in the woods, and in Season 4 his hermitage becomes a fortress and he begins recruiting men. Season 5's main plots show Lancelot and Arthur separately voyaging into their own pasts and futures as their conflict builds to a real cliffhanger in the final episode. Season 6 will consist of a flashback to a period 15 years earlier, showing how Arthur came to power in Britain as a representative of the Roman Empire but also as the chosen of the gods who alone can wield Excalibur.

Casting

* Alexandre Astier: Arthur, King of Britain
* Lionnel Astier: Léodagan, King of Carmeliard
* Simon Astier: Yvain, Knight of the Lion, Guenièvre's brother
* Guillaume Briart: Burgundes king
* Carlo Brandt: Méléagant, the man in black
* Christian Bujeau: the weaponmaster
* Antoine de Caunes: Dagonet, knight
* Jacques Chambon: Merlin, wizard
* Luc Chambon: Nathair, spy
* Alain Chapuis: the innkeeper
* Thomas Cousseau: Lancelot, Knight of the Lake
* Julien Dutel: Kay, horn blower
* José Drevon: Ygerne of Tintagel, Arthur's mother
* Caroline Ferrus: Mevanwi, Karadoc's wife
* Audrey Fleurot: the Lady of the Lake (she played Angharad in the pilot episodes)
* Bruno Fontaine: Elias of Kelliwic'h, wizard
* Brice Fournier: Kadoc, Karadoc's brother
* Nicolas Gabion: Bohort, King of Gaunnes
* Anne Girouard: Guenièvre, Arthur's wife
* Gilles Graveleau: Roparzh, peasant
* Vanessa Guedj: Angharad, Guinevere's maid (she played Guinevere herself in the pilot episodes)
* Jean-Christophe Hembert : Karadoc, Knight of Vannes
* Alexis Hénon: Galessin, Duke of Orkney
* Valérie Keruzoré: Nessa, maid
* Alban Lenoir: Ferghus, Lancelot's aide-de-camp
* Jean-Robert Lombard: Father Blaise, priest of Kaamelott
* Stéphane Margot: Calogrenant, King of Caledonia
* Serge Papagalli: Guethenoc, peasant
* Caroline Pascal: Demetra, Arthur's mistress
* Franck Pitiot: Perceval, Knight of Wales
* Aurélien Portehaut: Gauvain, knight, Arthur's nephew
* François Rollin: Loth, King of Orkney
* Thibault Roux: Grüdü, bodyguard of the King
* Alexandra Saadoun: Tumet, Arthur's mistress
* Magali Saadoun: Aziliz, Arthur's mistress
* Tony Saba: Hervé of Rinel, knight
* Bruno Salomone: Caius Camillus, Roman centurion
* Joëlle Sevilla: Séli, Léodagan's wife, Guenièvre's mother
* Anne-Valérie Soler: Aelis, Arthur's mistress
* Loïc Varraut: Venec, slave trader

Most of them are friends or family of Alexandre Astier, and have already worked with him. The few persons coming from a cast session are Anne Girouard (Guenièvre), Vanessa Guedj (Angharad) and Guillaume Briart (King of the Burgundians).

Guest stars

Various guest stars have made appearances on the show, including Guy Bedos, Didier Bénureau, Emma de Caunes, Alain Chabat, Christian Clavier, Émilie Dequenne, Léa Drucker, François Morel, Claire Nadeau, Philippe Nahon, Barbara Schulz and Élie Semoun.

Release date

The series premiered on M6 on January 3, 2005.

pin-off

A comic book series inspired by "Kaamelott" started in November 2006, with story by Alexandre Astier and art by Steven Dupré. Two books (out of three) have been published so far, and the third should be ready for Christmas 2008:
* "L'Armée du Nécromant" ("The Necromancer's Army")
* "Les Sièges de Transport" ("The Transport Seats")
* "L'Enigme du Coffre" ("The Mystery of the Strongbox")

Links

* [http://kaamelott.m6.fr/ Official M6 site]
* [http://www.robinandco.com/fr/icalt/programme.php?ID=797.769 Producer's site for Kaamelott]
* [http://www.historiatv.com/emission/kaamelott/ Historia TV in Canada site]
* [http://bd.casterman.com/ALBUMS_detail.cfm?Id=2255 Casterman, publishers of the comic books, site]