Voltaire in Love (2021 TV miniseries ) ft. Imogen Cooper from Yoreflix

[00:00:10] Hello and welcome to Fetch the Smelling Salts. I'm Alice and this is our podcast all about period dramas from every era and all around the world. We love to make your period drama watching experience more enjoyable with historical context and production facts. That is always tough to say at the top, all by myself. You did excellently. Thank you. Thank you. You're not on yet. Oh, sorry.

[00:00:40] Just the supports are in me. Thank you for your affirmations, mystery guest. You're welcome. So our guest today is the wonderful Imogen Cooper, who is here with us because she is the founder of Yoreflix, which is a new streaming service that is all about period dramas.

[00:01:04] So basically, once upon a time, all of us who love period dramas thought to ourselves, I really wish there was a place where I could just watch period dramas because that's what I want to do. And Imogen was one of those people. And she said, you know what? I think I'm just going to go ahead and make that happen. We're so happy to have you, Imogen. And today we're talking about a show that is currently streaming on Yoreflix called Voltaireire in Love. Yeah. So how's it going?

[00:01:34] It's going fantastically. I'm very excited to be doing this podcast. I think pretty much everything you just said is exactly what we're trying to build with Yoreflix in a streaming platform environment. So it's a place where you can watch historical and period dramas to your heart's content. But then it's also supported with historical context articles and podcast episodes and supplementary information about film productions themselves, information from the filmmakers about how it was made.

[00:02:02] So it is like a little ecosystem of historical and period drama that we're creating with Yoreflix. And I love that there are people who are into that in the same way that I am. It's very validating for the fact that I've spent two years building this business as well. So it's good to hear. Yeah. I'll validate you all day long because it does kind of feel like this. You're not paying me to say any of this, by the way. True.

[00:02:28] It does feel like this was kind of made for us, for Fetch the Smelling Salt and our listeners. Because when I wanted to do a little bit of research about some of the characters in Voltaire in Love, one of the first things that popped up was an article from Yoreflix from the blog. Oh, great. Like if I start, you know, Googling things about like certain people or kind of historical accuracy about the life of Voltaire as it pertains to Voltaire in Love, it's one of the first things that comes up. Oh, I love that.

[00:02:58] That's great. That's great. Yeah. I think one of the things we also wanted to do with Yoreflix was not just create another streaming platform that all the same things were going to be on. I think there's a lot of historical and period drama fans who you can find a lot of the big shows and big TV series across various different platforms now. I mean, the streaming landscape itself is a very bad situation for most people in general, the way that it's structured.

[00:03:23] And I think what then happens is there's a lot of films and TV series that never actually make it to the audience that would love them because they just get a little bit lost in the mix somewhere. And Voltaire in Love is definitely one of those kinds of theories that just hasn't really reached the audience that would love it yet. And that's part of what we wanted to do with Yoreflix was create a home for those kinds of things. And the plan is to grow out there.

[00:03:53] Yeah, because Voltaire in Love is one that I, having now watched it, I think it would do well on Netflix if it had kind of Netflix level marketing. I think there's no reason that people wouldn't really love it on Netflix. But it can understand why Netflix like wouldn't take a chance on it necessarily. And I think having things that are foreign language, that are lesser known, even things that we already know and love kind of mixed in all together,

[00:04:21] creates something that is really for people who love period dramas because we love stories that aren't necessarily being told. Yeah. A lot of us are the kind of history lovers that are like, oh, I just really want to hear, I want to hear about that person's story. Yeah. I don't necessarily want the same Regency stuff over and over again. Or I don't want the same kind of like high production stuff that Netflix is putting out over and over again. Yeah.

[00:04:50] I mean, don't get me wrong. I would, the place that your flicks is going to, the direction I'm very much moving in is eventually that your flicks will be the only subscription that any historical or period drama lover ever needs. So we'll be licensing everything that currently exists, all the nostalgic stuff, plus all the new stuff, plus all the independent filmmaker stuff. Give us five years. Like that's where I'd like to get to. And as of right now, we have to grow. We're a startup.

[00:05:19] So we have to take it step by step in terms of the content offering. Right now you have a timeline. That's one of the things that you can do that I think is really cool. If you want to find a show, you can look on an historical timeline and see where it takes place and kind of click through that way. It's a great way to discover new things. One day you could even have a map of the world. That is something I have mentioned to the tech team many a time.

[00:05:44] I've gone so far as the suggestion of a rotating animated globe and I got some looks of distress. But they don't like you. So I think, you know, yeah, we'll get there. Map maybe is a nice middle ground actually. Maybe I should float that idea as a stepping stone to the animated rotating globe. Yeah, we'll see. I absolutely do think that accessing film and TV series in a way that makes sense for a specific genre is also a great way to watch things.

[00:06:14] And so I love that time bar. I have to say this at the top because otherwise I'm going to forget once we get to the end. But if you are interested in Your Flicks as a listener and you do want to get an annual subscription, you can use a discount code that we have just for our Fetch the Smelling Salts listeners. It is in all caps, Your Flicks, S-A-L, as in SALTS, get it? So I'll mention that again at the end if I remember.

[00:06:44] We'll see. That's right. But I asked you to come on specifically today to be my Kim so that we could talk about Voltaire and Love. Yeah. And you suggested this. I said, what would you like to watch? And this is one from Your Flicks that you picked out. And I don't know very much about Voltaire. I've seen Candide performed as an opera when I lived in New York.

[00:07:14] And that's pretty much it. Yeah. I don't know very much about the guy. I did not know what I was in for. I think I emailed you. You did. I emailed you, I think, six minutes in to this show. And I was like, what? What the fuck's going on? Yeah, it's quite abrasive, the start. I think you also get that more in foreign language drama than you do in English language drama.

[00:07:41] They're not afraid of showing things how they really are. The French were not afraid of showing some things today. So shall we get into it? Shall we get into the summary? Let's get into it. We're in Paris and a very old Voltaire is on his deathbed in his very large fancy house, which is filled with people. This is such a nightmare. I hate anyone being around me when I'm ill. How are there so many people in this poor man's house?

[00:08:10] That's what you get when you make yourself the voice of enlightenment. Everyone feels like they're going to be enlightened in your presence, even if you're dying. It's unfortunate. So if you get to a certain level of fame in France, people can just walk into your house and be like, are you dead yet? Yeah. I feel also with Volta, there was a lot about his stance on things like religion that were quite interesting to people. But I would assume that when he was dying and that real crunch point was coming of, is he going to go to heaven? We're not quite sure.

[00:08:39] A lot of people probably would just want to be there to experience that. I think it's probably part of it as well. There were a lot of priests hanging around. Yeah. But thankfully, nobody is allowed to go into his room except for the Duke de Richelieu. And these two guys are clearly friends. Voltaire calls the Duke Louis and the Duke calls him Francois, which is very sweet. These guys holding hands and one of them coughing up blood.

[00:09:07] And a priest busts in to ask him, please, to say that he accepts Christ as his Lord and Savior. And Voltaire puts his hand on the guy's forehead and just shoves him away. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, maybe people were just like waiting to see, is he going to do it? Is he going to accept it? Or are some demons going to fly out of his mouth? Yeah. I think that was definitely the case.

[00:09:31] It's something that we've reflected in a short film that we've made as well that's coming out soon called The Pen That Will Not Bow, which is also based on the early life of Voltaire. And we kind of reflect that scene back. There's a priest in one of the scenes in that film. And we talk about the idea that if a priest is rejected on a deathbed, it's a really big deal. Like back in the 18th century, if that happened, people were going to talk about it for months. Months.

[00:09:58] I mean, the scandal of pushing a priest away on your deathbed is you can't say, do you have a death wish because you're dying? But do you have like an immortal death wish? Yeah. It's quite a big deal. If you love a bit of drama, then that's definitely death goals just in 18th century France to reject the priest. Yeah. But this also, you're pointing out something really cool as well, which is that on your flicks, you guys produce your own films and your stuff includes short films. Yeah, we have this new one.

[00:10:27] By the time this comes out, by the time this episode comes out, the short film you're talking about, The Pen That Will Not Bow, which is also about Voltaire, will be available. Yes? Yes, it will be. On the 23rd of October, that's being released on your flicks. So this could be a really good double feature. So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you've obviously not seen The Pen That Will Not Bow. So we won't talk about the intricacies of it too much because it would just be me yapping about it.

[00:10:54] But I think something that's really interesting in the Voltaire and Love series as well is Voltaire as a character, I think, or as a real person, the information we have about him that's portrayed so well in the series, and I like to think quite well portrayed in our short film as well, is that he was quite confused. He was a confused man. I think he was someone who has pretty much what, you know, our theological, political, cultural views that we have in the 21st century.

[00:11:21] He had them in the 18th century and that probably would have been quite a confusing place to be in your own head when everyone around you didn't match your own views or just society. It was never going to get to the place that Voltaire was in his mind. He was so far ahead of the 18th century in his views that I think he was just a bit confused. And I was talking to you about this a bit earlier as well.

[00:11:46] And he, as a person, was someone who didn't really have a defined sexuality. That at the time would have been very confusing for everybody to get their heads around. He had very mixed reviews about religion, theology, politics. He was someone who I think now would have been deemed to be quite liberal. But imagine that 300 years ago. It's such an interesting character, I think.

[00:12:11] And also a character that strangely isn't depicted that much in historical films and TV series. Even though he would have been such a big figure. Like a kind of important figure at the time. Yes, he does seem confused. His brow is furrowed a lot in this show. Because he does seem like a guy out of time. And there would be such better context for him today. Although I'm very, very glad he didn't exist today. Because I think he would have just been, you know, R.I.P. Voltaire.

[00:12:41] You would have loved a TikTok reel. Really? For real? But he wouldn't have had the same impact, would he? No. No, definitely not. I think it's important that these figures existed at various times throughout history. But I do feel for the guy. He does. Yeah, he thinks brow-furrowed for a reason. Yeah. Oh, and he... We're only like three minutes into this show right now. But I love as...

[00:13:07] One of the things I love about Voltaire in this show is he has no sense of humor about himself. No. He doesn't have much of a sense of humor at all. Like, he takes himself so seriously. And he takes everything around him so seriously. You're just like, oh, baby. Yeah. It's going to be okay. It's not going to be okay. But, like, it's going to be okay. He also lived for a really long time for those days. So, actually, he had a lot of seriousness left to go. I don't think he quite realized that probably in his early days.

[00:13:36] One thing I did notice, though, once he is old and once he dies, because... To get back to the summary, we now... We have a voiceover of Voltaire. Old Voltaire tells us that he died that same day, an hour before midnight. So, that was the 30th of May, 1778. And he is aged 83. So, he is a ghost now. And ghost Voltaire is a character now in this show.

[00:14:02] And ghost Voltaire explains that he thought that he would have no peace in the afterlife because he was condemned by the church. But he had a very cool priest nephew who was a real one. And as we see, he sneaks his body out of his house in the dead of night and puts him in a carriage, all dressed up, like, dressed in outdoor clothes, his corpse.

[00:14:29] And he tries to put a wig on his dead uncle's body. And the wig will not stay on. And it is so funny. And so, in retrospect, for a character that takes himself so deadly serious for the whole show, for him to get weekend at Bernie'd in a wig that doesn't fit by his nephew, in the end... And ghost Tim is into it. Ghost Tim is laughing about it. So, I really like that arc for him. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:58] I think it's a playfulness, I think, in those scenes. I'm trying to remember now when that comes before. It comes just before the birthing scene, I think. Oh, shush. Because this... We're not got there yet. This all happens before the opening credits. This happens before the opening credits. And I am already dying. So you think this is, like, kind of strange, kind of funerous, kind of incredible. And then... And then, immediately after the credits, we are treated to a vulva jump scare.

[00:15:27] And that vulva belongs to Voltaire's mum. This is full circle because she is giving birth to him. Yeah. He is born, Francois-Marie Arouette, on the 21st of November, 1694, in Paris. So from this point on, I'm going to call him François. Good. Until he takes the name Voltaire. Yeah. So as a baby, he's sick. The midwife gives him three days to live.

[00:15:54] But by the age of, like, seven, he's totally fine. He's doing stand-up for his family and friends. His older brother hates him. And his beloved mother dies of death. He dies of death. He does. Yeah. It is... It is one of the main period drama tropes... Yes. ...that we love. Yeah. Absolutely. So a few years later, Francois is sent by his father to a fancy boys' school run by

[00:16:24] This is the... Again, I don't speak French. Try my best. I'm going to be fighting for my life throughout this entire episode. But he is sent to the Lacie Louis-le-Grand. And pretty clear that he is from a good enough family to go to the school, but he is not one of the fancy boys. So there is a strict division of the classes in this school, even for, like, we 10-year-olds. But one day, he saves another boy from getting beaten up.

[00:16:53] And that boy is Louis-Francois Armand du Plicis, Duke of Richelieu. And oh, it's so cute. They're such good friends. Yes. And he is a fancy boy, isn't he? He's a fancy boy. He is a very fancy boy. And did you catch that name? Because that is the same Duke of Richelieu that was holding his hands as he died or right before he died. Yeah. So you know that this is going to be... Yeah.

[00:17:21] They're such good friends that Francois gets to hang out with the other rich boys, which the priest warns his dad is dangerous because he can never really be part of that world. And it seems like he is obsessed with celebrity. Yes. He likes the shiny things. Yes. Francois grows up and he graduates with a little group of pals. There's four of them. But the most important ones seem to be Louis and Villefond. And they look like adorable gay pilgrims.

[00:17:51] I'm not saying that they're gay pilgrims, but if you were to ask a drag queen to create a gay pilgrim outfit, the thing that they are wearing as they graduate from their fancy boy school is what they would come up with. That's an excellent way of describing it. I've seen it, so I can picture it. But if I hadn't, I'd still be able to picture it right now. Oh, it's beautiful. I love their slutty little shoes. I tell you what, we have the sluttiest little shoes in the short film as well.

[00:18:22] It's something that was taken quite seriously. Yeah, quite seriously. Because the slutty shoes give me joy throughout this entire film. I love that the fashion does not change. It's slutty shoes for men throughout all of Voltaire's young life. Yes, absolutely. And I think any kind of fashion historian will tell you that that's very accurate at the time period. So we also took it quite seriously in our short film. Fantastic.

[00:18:50] Francois' brother has also grown up and he has the worst haircut in human history. That seems to be a bit of an epidemic of bad haircuts going around historical dramas at the moment, I feel. Especially in The Uprising, that had quite a bit of meme-age made from it because of the haircuts in that film. Is it? I mean, they probably just, they put like a wooden bowl on their heads and cut around it.

[00:19:15] But at least for Francois' brother, it seemed like more of a choice because everyone else has the beautiful flowing curly locks and he's like, no, I will be the opposite of that. I will have God's haircut, which is basically like a high undercut. But yeah, I do wonder sometimes what happens when you're producing things. And I've had this before when I've produced things.

[00:19:41] Sometimes actors make really dodgy decisions about their own personal haircuts just before you're about to shoot. And that leaves you with no choice. If you haven't pre-ordered the wig because you didn't know they were going to do it, there's nothing you can do. So I wonder if maybe that was a case of that happening for this actor. Yeah. It fits very well with the character. So I like to think that this actor is a professional and he was like, yes, do what you have to do.

[00:20:08] I will wear the worst haircut in the world for as long as production lasts. Maybe. Maybe. And I'm too skeptical. I've produced too many films. So Francois' dad and brother, they want him to become a lawyer, a notary. He has no interest in that. And instead, his pal Louis takes him to meet the Duchess Dumaine at one of her parties.

[00:20:34] And this is where I have to mention that we've talked a little bit about this, but these subtitles had me struggling throughout the entire show. And I know that this is something that is not your Flix's doing, that this is something that the French production company did. They clearly were like, oh, people who speak English want to watch this? Fuck them. Well, it actually would have been the distribution.

[00:21:02] It's very hard to get foreign language content distributed into the UK or America or whatever it is. And it does present an issue with subtitling. For sure. Then I think the production companies themselves are like, it's in French. That's us done. So then that's their part over. So kudos to the French producers. They probably would also be upset.

[00:21:27] Well, the subtitles struggling produced two good effects. So it was difficult. I did have to pause a lot more than usual just to be like, what actually is going on? Because this is exposition and the subtitles do not make sense. They will be. It's currently being processed. So if anyone else listens to this, hopefully by the time this comes out, that will be fixed on the platform. Or you'll have to let me know. Yeah. We're going to a French language speaker.

[00:21:58] Please get in touch and let us know when you watch this if the subtitles were hilarious. So like two things. Sometimes you would get some really funny mistakes in the subtitles. Like the Duchess Domaine was often translated as the Duchess Domaine. Oh, fantastic.

[00:22:17] And the other thing was I learned a little bit about French accents from this because so Francois Arouette was spelled like four different ways depending on who was saying it because it seemed to be just like AI kind of like listening and translating.

[00:22:34] So if you've got people pronouncing it in slightly different ways because they have a different French accent because a lot of like the policemen who would probably be like a very different class from the aristocrats are saying the name differently than it's being spelled differently. So that made it more noticeable. Okay, that's kind of interesting though. Because you wouldn't pick up on the difference in accents probably without that being there. Definitely I wouldn't.

[00:22:59] For the people who do get to watch it with the right subtitles, they won't have that joy of being able to pick up on the different accents. But they'll probably prefer that, I would assume. All right. She goes to the Duchess Domaine. Her husband has been chosen by the current king, Louis XIV, to be the regent if he dies before Louis XV comes of age. So this guy, the Duke Domaine, is an illegitimate son of the king.

[00:23:29] And this seems to be, as far as I can tell, really, really historically accurate in terms of the people who are in it. So these are all real people, the Duchess Domaine, the Duke Domaine. Obviously, the kings of Louis XIV and XV are real. Yes. The many Louis. And Duchess Domaine is a character who I tried to look up and found an article on the blog at YourFlix about. So if you want to read a little bit more about her and her life, there is some really cool stuff to be found out on the YourFlix blog.

[00:23:59] She's a really intense person and she's really hard to impress. And she loves a bit of improvised poetry about how hot she is. And luckily, that's Francois' like main thing. Yeah, he's like, I don't want to be a notary, but I can write poetry about this woman till the car's gone home. Yeah. So he's accepted into the crew pretty swiftly.

[00:24:20] And he and his friends celebrate his success with the Duchess by going out, picking up some nice ladies and having a little carriage orgy. I'm not sure. He's like, does he rent the carriage? Does he buy the carriage? He's like drunk. He comes across the carriage. He's like, I'm getting in that carriage with my friends. They find some ladies. They're like, yeah, you come into our carriage.

[00:24:45] They orgy around in the carriage until eventually the carriage takes him home. So when Bridgerton came out, when the whole Penelope and Colin sexy times in the carriage came out, I saw some kind of video on social media about like a sex historian who was positing that Colin fingering Penelope in the carriage would have tipped the carriage over and they would have died.

[00:25:14] Which I was incredulous about. I'm not sure if that's true. But knowing that, I fully believe that an orgy with six people, four young men and two young ladies would have definitely tipped that carriage. But it didn't. It must have been a very stable activity between them. They must have figured it out. Who knows? They were good at physics. Yeah. Well, Volta seems like a well-prepared.

[00:25:43] So maybe he just went and put some little blocks underneath the wheels first. You know, who knows? They were riding around. They were in motion. But yeah, so maybe not. But also imagine having to drive the carriage orgy. Yeah, that's pretty peak for that person. Oh, you're right. I figured he'd be so annoyed. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Not even what we signed up for.

[00:26:11] So Francois' dad, Francois gets home and his dad is so angry about this carriage orgy that you know what he does? He gets him a new job as a private secretary to the ambassador of France in The Hague. And who knew that an orgy was key to getting a job in diplomacy? Yeah. Yeah. In The Hague, Francois gets invited to dinner with a very cool woman who is a journalist.

[00:26:40] She's a French exile who criticizes the French government. And she hangs out with other exiles who are mostly Protestants. And Francois learns about the ongoing persecution of Protestants. And we see it come up later in his writing about religious freedom and specifically the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572. But more importantly, Francois takes a shine to the journalist's daughter.

[00:27:06] And he like stalks her in a hedge while she's walking her massive dog, which somehow leads to her falling down and him seeing her butt. Again, going to love a bit of foreign language historical drama. Very good. There was no reason for that. They had to work backwards. They were like, how do we get her butt out? Maybe she falls. How does she fall? I don't know. Give her a big dog. Yeah. Give her a dog.

[00:27:36] It's good though. You know, there's things like she entrusted and engaged, which is hard to do these days. Yeah. They're sprinkling it in just for me. So when they get caught having sexy times together, Francois gets fired and sent back to Paris. And his dad wants to send him either to the Bastille or Louisiana. But instead, he gets him another job. And may this kind of failure find me, please. So he gets a job as like a clerk or something.

[00:28:06] It doesn't seem like he ever even works there at all. But he does meet his new pal, Nicolas, who introduces him to an actress from the Comédie Francais, which is the French National Theatre, which still exists. Yeah. And this is where the short film, The Pen That Will Not Bow picks up. So that focuses on the relationship between Francois and Adrienne LeCouvre, the Parisian actress, and her story as well.

[00:28:33] That really is the story of the short film, their relationship. Oh, I love that. Because we're going to get to Adrienne soon. And I love her. Yeah. Great. So Francois, he's back in the mix of big Parisian movers and shakers. He's in with the Duke and Duchess Dumaine, the human Duke and Duchess. And he writes the first version of his play called Oedipus.

[00:29:00] And according to his ghost self, still narrating, he's been watching this whole time. According to his ghost self, he is at this point just 20 years old. Crazy. So then chaos erupts when King Louis XIV dies in 1715. So Francois' friend, the Duke Dumaine, is meant to be regent. But it turns out that his cousin has a better claim to be regent. And so he yoinks it out from under him.

[00:29:29] And the Duke crew are like not happy. They're not content with this. And they plan to fight back. And Francois is known to be part of their crew. So when a scathing pamphlet about the new regent gets out, he gets blamed, even though he didn't write it. But he gets sent off into exile. Oh no, what does that mean? He has to go stay at the fancy country estate of some other duke.

[00:29:58] And he's not allowed to come back to Paris. Why is it in all of these period dramas, whenever anyone gets exiled, for any regular person, it would be the best thing that ever happened to you? Yeah. I think it was a weird political thing, I think, back in that time period. You were so much more patriotic, I think, than people are now. So being exiled was quite a big deal. Like you weren't allowed to be patriotic. You must go somewhere else.

[00:30:28] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas now, I don't think patriotism is quite the same. No, it wouldn't be the same if you were like, you can't go to London. People would be like, oh no. But he loves Paris. Nobody loves Paris more than Voltaire. True. True. So not being able to go, he is suffering. He doesn't like it. But he has fun out in the countryside. He works on Oedipus. He gets a new girlfriend. And his school pal, Villefond, comes to visit.

[00:30:56] Now, unfortunately, one night, Francois is ill with some mysterious but apparently recurring ailment. So one night, he's strucketh with it. He's in bed going, oh, oh no, the family illness. I'm strucketh. So this means, the upshot is, he does not get to participate in the orgy taking place in the house that night. I need a drink of water.

[00:31:26] This is the fantastic summary also. Oh, thank you. So I'll also remind you that we are only two episodes in. So this is a one-to-one episode to orgy ratio at this point. Okay, solid. I love this because this orgy has almost no context. It's like, because it does not move the plot forward. Voltaire isn't even present.

[00:31:56] We're only minor characters there. It's like, it only happens to remind us all that we are at a manor house in the French countryside. And so people do be having orgies. Yeah, absolutely. They had nothing else to do. I really feel people overlook the fact that they didn't have nine-to-fives. So really, that was their activity. That was the thing that kept him entertained.

[00:32:21] After this orgy, Villefond also gets with Francois' girlfriend and they get mad at each other, but he gets over it. It's fine. Yeah, they're boys. It's okay. Yeah, they're like, I like the peptide. The talk he gets from the country duke he's staying with where he's just like, so did you really, did you like her that much? And he was like, no, I guess not. No, never mind. It's okay. I guess like it wasn't that deep.

[00:32:50] No, no. Francois is allowed to go back to Paris where he actually does write a scathing pamphlet about the region. And he manages to keep it under wraps until an undercover detective gets him to admit that he did it. And then he's tossed in the Bastille for 11 months. Yeah. Quite a long stint. Yeah. We don't, in the show, we're not really sure that that's, I think maybe later on they're

[00:33:18] like, oh, was 11 months not enough for you? But I had to look up like if he really did go to the Bastille for this. He did. It was for 11 months. And apparently the cell in the show is nicer than the one he actually had. Because the cell is like nice. It's whitewashed. He has a big window that he can look out of. But apparently he was in a windowless cell in the Bastille in real life. He nearly did a few stints in the Bastille, did Francois.

[00:33:47] And I think before he became well known for his writing, he would not have been given nice treatment. I think when we were researching for the short film, when the writer for the short film, Florian Henscher, was researching, he was telling me that it was after that stint in the Bastille that he kind of, you're probably going to dive into this. I'm sure you've got it in your summary. That he then kind of rebranded himself, I think, to probably save ever having to stay in such a cell again. He was like, I'm no longer going to be this part of the working class.

[00:34:16] I'm actually just going to rebrand myself and save against that happening again. Ah, that's really interesting because in the show, it doesn't seem to phase him that much. He's going crazy because he doesn't have a pencil for a little while. And then they let him write. And then he's like, yeah, it's fine. The Bastille in the show does seem like just like a rich person's time out. Yeah. It doesn't seem to have the same gravity. Yeah. He wasn't kind of well-respected enough or well-known enough then for that to be the case.

[00:34:45] So that's maybe a slight discrepancy in the show. You know, we love a bit of historical drama ambiance that takes us away from history. But yeah, I think the rebrand came after that little stint. Because eventually the regent lets him out and then gives him another job. Yeah. Amazing. So his job is rather like a pension, meaning he gets a salary to write what he wants as long as it's not a scathing pamphlet.

[00:35:12] And this is when the Comédie Francais agrees to put on his revised version of Oedipus. He meets a new girl, an actress named Adrienne. And he gets his play published under his brand new pen name, Voltaire. Yes. There's some speculation isn't there about where Voltaire comes from. There's not like an obvious answer to that.

[00:35:37] Some historians I read speculate that it's a little bit of like a play on his name, but also from a French word meaning like to move forward. Yeah, I think I read that one, something from the Latin derivative of philosophy or something. I think I read. Or the Latin derivative of what is now that word. But also I think there was something to do with a Greek philosopher. I'm sure there was a Greek philosopher part of that. I might have to fact check myself. I'm sure there was some kind of Greek philosopher involvement in that name. Choice.

[00:36:06] Anyway, he doesn't explain it to anybody in the show anyway. Yeah. So it's opening night of Oedipus and it's a smash success, except that at the end of the play, his pal, Louis de Richelieu, gets arrested for being part of this bananas plot to kidnap the regent and keep him in a basement in Spain. Yeah. The Duke crew really thought they were clever about this one.

[00:36:36] It's a no-brainer, surely. And Voltaire, he's a suspect for a little while because he's in the mix. He's off the hook. And I love that when he goes to see his friend Richelieu in the Bastille, his cell is nicer than my flat. He has like, they brought in like Persian rugs. He's got a fireplace. He's like reading and sipping like claret. He's fine. Yeah, yeah.

[00:37:06] He probably was pretty cushy. Then Voltaire's dad dies. He's very sad, but he's even sadder when he finds out that his dad only left his share of inheritance to his future legitimate children, which he does, obviously he does not have. We also learn at this point that he has an older sister. This is the first time we're seeing her. It's fine. So he's broke, but he keeps writing. And he does a private reading at some rich person's house in Paris.

[00:37:35] And this is his piece that he writes about the fateful night at St. Bartholomew, the massacre. Yeah. Doing this reading, he catches the eye of a more mature married lady, the Marquise de Bonnier, and they start a sexual relationship. Also, I'm pretty sure that this is, the Marquise is the one who invited his friend to the country orgy. Hmm.

[00:38:05] Yeah. I don't know. She's got priors. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. They start a sexual relationship, but she also wants her husband to help with his career. But he's still with his new girlfriend, Adrienne. And it seems like Adrienne, who is, again, an actress at the Comédie Francais, she's sleeping with rich guys too. Yeah. So it's an arrangement they kind of have.

[00:38:32] She had some very famous love affairs, Adrienne LeCouzre. I have a little bit about her at the end because I didn't realize, I think the show includes her really beautifully and I love the actress playing her, but I don't think they do her glamour justice. I think she was a much more, like, bigger name, a bigger personality, a more glamorous and important person than the show even shows her to be. I think that's why we wanted to focus on her in the short film as well,

[00:39:01] because she's such an amazing character in her own right. The poem that Voltaire wrote toward the end of her life about the actress, you know, a very famous poem, was about her. So we felt she deserved more attention in general. Ooh, I can't wait. Okay. So Voltaire is trying to get his newest work published, an epic poem called Henriade. I'm very sorry. About King Henry IV of France.

[00:39:29] But a cardinal, a Cardinal Fleury, convinces the king to prohibit its publication. Cardinal Fleury becomes Voltaire's, like, nemesis. After a while, I like him kind of lurking in the shadows. So he's not getting it published. And even more sad, his friend Villefond dies of death. Very sad. Dives of death. Very sad. It's off screen, too. He's just like, oh, Villefond's sick. Oh, no, now he's dead. Is that now? Yeah.

[00:40:00] Maybe that could even have been, again, a production thing. In my head, I'm always thinking about things that could have been for production-related reasons. Scheduling issue. Yeah. That, I love that as a producer, you watch something like that. And you're like, oh, he's dead. I bet that was a scheduling issue. I do. It's why I unfortunately can't watch film or TV series anymore. Very sad. Impossible to switch it off. Yeah.

[00:40:26] So, as if things couldn't get worse for Voltaire, while working on his new play, he falls ill with La Petite Virolet, which the subtitles call The Little Virol, which then I had to look up. Which, again, was a silver lining for me because then I got to learn about smallpox. La Petite Virolet is smallpox.

[00:40:50] And thankfully, Voltaire is being looked after by his friends, Nicola and Adrienne, and a doctor in a very scary-looking mask who gives him the best possible treatment at the time, which is bleeding from the foot, a medicine that causes vomiting, and drinking an ungodly amount of lemonade. Ten pints of lemonade a day. Yeah.

[00:41:19] They were a few years, few decades off of the vaccine. So, that seems like a good enough cure. I mean, which, like, the bleeding and vomiting seems, like, standard kind of fare for doctors at the time. But the lemonade, I learned, was actually not a bad idea because smallpox, one of the symptoms of smallpox is this, like, unquenchable thirst.

[00:41:41] And so, staying hydrated and having some kind of, like, a little bit of a nutritious, like, drink to drink to keep you hydrated is actually, like, beneficial. Interesting. And I guess the vitamin C probably in lemonade at the time was higher content levels than the lemonade we have these days because I'm assuming they just made it with lemons. Yeah. So, that probably would have worked quite well for the immune system. And so, he gets better. And I have to say, he does not look very poxy.

[00:42:10] If you're thinking about something like Bleak House where we have the main character who gets smallpox and then that's part of her character is that she's, like, afflicted with smallpox scars for the rest of her life. Yeah. Even when he has, he actively has smallpox, we see, like, three little blisters on his face and then he gets better. They couldn't have given him, like, one prominent smallpox scar just for a little bit of character. No. It's so funny.

[00:42:38] I think also it's interesting because so many people died of smallpox. But I think probably what happened somewhere along the line now was that thinking that, well, if he survived, it can't have been that bad. But actually, people did still get really bad cases of it and survived and, like you say, left with scars. But I think probably in this case, they were just like, well, he survived. So, it can't have been that bad. Yeah. And you don't see smallpox scars in his portraits. But that doesn't really say anything, does it? Because it's very easy to be, like...

[00:43:07] And also, if you're paying someone to paint a portrait of you at that time, that's probably quite expensive. And you're probably going to tell them to lose any scars or blemishes. Yeah. I'm going to need that face-tuned, please. Yeah. So, the Comédie Francais puts on Voltaire's latest play called Marianne. And he looks so creepy watching this performance from the shadows, like half his face. This is, again, him taking himself so seriously.

[00:43:36] And he's so, like, intense. And he's, like, it's got, like, half his face behind a curtain, just staring so frighteningly. Voltaire, watching his own play is my sleep paralysis demon. Just analysing every single second. It's like, oh, no, I'm going to miss my monologue. Probably self-critical, to be honest.

[00:44:05] He seems like the kind of man that would have been highly self-critical. Oh, this poor, his poor, intense fellow. How did he just not, like, burn up? I know. Well, he has a reason to be self-critical about this show because it flops. But he reworks it and his pal Richelieu gets it put on for the queen at Versailles.

[00:44:25] And she likes it so much that she gives him a new royal pension of $1,500 money per year. That's a lot. That's a lot of money. And Voltaire isn't just working on plays, though. In fact, I don't know if he has time to work on much of anything because he starts getting involved in things because of people's bullshit. Yes.

[00:44:53] So first, his rich friends ask him to intervene on behalf of their friend, a priest who is going to be brutally tortured and executed for raping a 13-year-old boy. And Voltaire does advocate for this guy, not because he likes him or thinks he's innocent, but just because he thinks that torture is cruel and, like, execution is barbaric.

[00:45:21] And this becomes a theme of, like, rich people's bullshit becomes his, like, cause du jour. Yeah, absolutely. That he's going to write about. Very early rumblings of some revolution thinking there. Mm-hmm. And he gets this guy off the hook by going so far as to blackmail the Cardinal Fleury.

[00:45:41] So the second rich dude bullshit that he gets wrapped up in involves a dude called Rohan Chabot, who is a Viscount and a massive dickbag. He is also a massive dickbag in our short film. One of my favorite characters in our short film. Yeah. Yes. I'm glad he shows up again. Yeah. He's great. There's one scene between Rohan, Voltaire, Adrian LeCouvre, the man that she was with at the time. And it's one of my favorite scenes.

[00:46:10] They have, like, a little moment, Voltaire and Rohan Chabot in our short film. And it's fantastic. I love it. Well, there's a moment here that sets everything off. It's Rohan Chabot comes to, like, a Comedy Francais party. And he tries to drag Adrian away against her will. Like, hey, I liked you in that play. You're going to come sleep with me now. And she's like, get the fuck off. And Voltaire steps in to defend her and insults Rohan Chabot.

[00:46:40] So a few days later, he has some goons beat Voltaire up. And this happens at the Paris house of one of his rich friends during a rich person party. And Voltaire's friends are horrible to him. Like, nobody will help him go to the police or get justice. And they remind him in no uncertain terms that he is just a fun pet to them. And he needs to know his place.

[00:47:08] Voltaire locks in on getting his own justice to the point of going to join a little gang of brigands so that they can teach him to fight dirty. They missed an opportunity for a montage here. But I'm nitpicking. So Voltaire is so determined to duel this guy, but it just isn't going to happen.

[00:47:32] And when he tries, he just gets arrested again and exiled again. And this time he has to go all the way to England. And over in England, he's writing to his friends. And I guess he learns about Shakespeare this time. Yeah. A revelation. His friend is reading his letter. He's like, he says he's learned about a playwright called Shakespeare. They're like, who's that?

[00:48:03] Ew. We don't like any of those English people. They're French. At first, I found it so hard to believe that they would not have heard of Shakespeare as actors at that level. But I don't know. They're French. Yeah. I feel like even if they had heard of him, they would ignore the fact that Anglo-French relations at that point were really very bad. Like, hmm. They were enemies. Enemy, enemies.

[00:48:30] So I kind of believe that. So he also goes to Sir Isaac Newton's funeral, which tells us that it's now 1726. And pretty soon, he's allowed to come back to France because he's gotten himself into some trouble with the English law folk. And his old nemesis, Cardinal Fleury, says, it's not up to the English to put Voltaire in prison. So they bring his ass back.

[00:48:58] And when Voltaire comes back to visit Adrienne, she's in the middle of having sex with the Comte du Saxe. Yes. And Voltaire doesn't mind, but this becomes important later. I also want to say, unfortunately, the orgy that we spoke about earlier is the final orgy of the show. So it does not continue. There is not an orgy per episode. Yeah.

[00:49:25] By 1729, Voltaire is allowed to live in Paris and some of his published work is doing really well. So he gets some coin and a housekeeper and the Comedie Francais is putting on Oedipus again. And during a performance in which Adrienne is the lead character, she collapses on stage mid monologue.

[00:49:48] And right away when Voltaire rushes to be with her, she tells him that if she dies, it's because she was poisoned by the Duchess of Bouillon out of jealousy of her relationship with the Comte du Saxe. And Adrienne does die with Voltaire and the Comte du Saxe at her bedside.

[00:50:11] And Adrienne does get an autopsy because Voltaire does accuse the Duchess of Bouillon of murdering her. But the autopsy apparently doesn't reveal any signs of poisoning. And just for additional tragedy, the rule in France is that Adrienne can't receive a Catholic burial, even though she was Catholic and gave money to the church in her will because she was an actress.

[00:50:38] She's given a really undignified burial in a very confusing location. I think they're just coming out of the hospital, so it's like a courtyard by the hospital, behind the hospital, but it's somewhere definitely where they keep rowboats. Yeah, it's definitely bleak. Especially bleak if that's your rowboat and you're going to get it later and you trip over a shallow grave. Find something you're not expecting.

[00:51:05] Now, Voltaire is heartbroken and incensed. So he does what he does best and he writes a scathing poem shaming the church and the aristocrats who loved Adrienne when she was alive because of her art, but then debased her in death because of that same art. And King Louis XV gets a hold of this and he is not happy. And sure enough, Voltaire is going to get arrested again.

[00:51:32] And this time he's looking at a long stint in the Bastille. So for the last time in this miniseries, Voltaire has to get out of Paris. We're not sure where he's off to this time, but he's on a white horse and his ghost explains that the first part of his life was coming to an end. And wherever he was headed, he was going to get involved in fights that would immortalize Voltaire's name.

[00:51:59] The name that he had created to designate the man who wouldn't shut up. The end. Oh yes. Oh yes. I mean, it's a fascinating story. And I think there are so many parts of that that it's wonderful. It's being turned into a series. Yeah, it's such a shame. I think this series was made two or three years ago now. Maybe I'm trying to think of the production year off the top of my head. But yeah, it's 2021 that it was released.

[00:52:28] Oh, so more than that, five years ago. And it's had various releases, but it's such an interesting story. And it's, I think, so well filmed, actually. You know, the way that it's made is so beautiful. It reminded me of Amadeus in that it seemed like they used a lot of natural lighting, which seemed really hard to do because you get so many dark, dark period dramas. And this for something that seemed to only utilize natural light.

[00:52:58] They did it so well in both daytime and nighttime. Yeah, it was gorgeously shot. It was gorgeously costumed. It was brilliantly acted. Like, I loved the series. I'm glad. I'm so glad I was able to see it. Well, I hope it's the start of us being able to license more and more like this. There's so many more films and TV series out there like this that have been made that are incredible.

[00:53:24] There's this one I'm kind of like courting at the moment, and it's a Polish historical drama. And it's about the interwar time period, but it's all like great Gatsby style. It's about this club that was operating at the time based on a real story, amazingly made and filmed. And it's things like that that I would love to find as much of that as possible to put onto your flicks so people can watch it. It's gorgeous.

[00:53:48] This will also be a really interesting watch for anyone who really likes to go and do their own research after seeing period pieces like this because there are so many characters who are real. It's really difficult to make a biography that's as detailed as this and as realistic as this. But I think maybe one of the criticisms that I have of it that we've already talked a little bit about is that Voltaire is the dude. Voltaire is the main character.

[00:54:18] So everyone else around him is a nemesis or a friend. And so that in some ways reduces people, these other really important characters like the Duke of Richelieu. I mean, I like him just being kind of a buddy pal and he seems like a real sweetheart, even though apparently in real life he was a little bit less of a sweetheart. He was a real womanizer.

[00:54:43] He – like at one point the regent lets him out of prison on the deal that he will not date his daughter anymore. And this is a real story. I don't know if this is a real thing that got him out of prison, but they had a real relationship. Absolutely. So all the time that he's like part of a plot to like bungle off the regent into some basement in Spain. He's also dating his daughter, which is very funny.

[00:55:09] He was apparently – some say it was based on – or rather the character Valmont from Dangerous Liaisons was based on the Duke of Richelieu. Interesting. Okay. So he was one dude and the other one was Adrienne LeCouvre, who was, as I said, her own amazing person. Yeah, she was a bit of a powerhouse in her own right, for sure.

[00:55:36] And we have Sarah featuring a lot in our short film, The Pen That Will Not Bow. It kind of deals with her story a little bit more. And so she was a real character. She was an actress of the Comedie Francais. Yeah. And she was considered one of the best actresses of her time, right? Well, she performed over 1,500 times. So she wasn't just a famous actress. She was like insanely prolific actress.

[00:56:06] She was the most popular actress in Paris. She was a socialite. She had massive influence over a lot of these noble men. And her relationship with Voltaire was something that definitely happened because he wrote these poems about her. But something that would have had to be kept quite under wraps because for her own social progression and her own place in society, she had to be seen to be courting the noble and aristocratic men that kept her career going.

[00:56:34] But yeah, she performed an inordinate amount of times at that theatre. And they also did not support her being buried after she died. So that kind of shows you where her position was really. So this is something that I couldn't really find. It seemed like they knew each other, Voltaire and Adrianne, but I didn't see any evidence of their publicly being together. Yeah. I don't know whether they would have publicly been seen together or not necessarily.

[00:57:01] There's one documentation of him coming to the parties of one of her performances. But the reason we know they had some kind of relationship is because of the poems he wrote. So there's a poem called The Actress Who Died that speaks about her in a very romantic way. So that's kind of what, you know, I guess the evidence that we have that they had some kind of romantic entanglement. And what about her death? Was it murder? So Florian, the writer of our short film, he went back and forth on this many times.

[00:57:29] No, actually, it seemed like it was just some kind of gastro issue. They think she might have had Crohn's, an early form of Crohn's disease that affected her death. But no, we don't think it was actually poisoning. But it was widely suspected at the time that she was poisoned by the person that she named in the show, the Duchess of Bouillon, who is like her rival. So this is someone who also wanted to be with the Comte de Saxe?

[00:57:59] Yes. I mean, it's hard to say exactly. There's different takes on it. And Florian, again, would probably be the person that went into all the source material on this. I'm paraphrasing what he's told me. But my understanding was that the Comte de Saxe was married to someone. All the history behind it is that he was married to someone having an affair with Adrienne. And it was the woman he was married to who was rumored to have poisoned her. That's what I remember being told. But really, all of the medical evidence points to her just having some early form of Crohn's disease.

[00:58:29] Well, I don't believe it. I believe she was murdered because she told me so on my TV. That's a gay. That's good. And I believe her. That's fair. That definitely seems more fitting with everything else that was happening in her life, which was all quite dramatic. Yeah, and it's a shame that we don't get to see that drama. All of the drama is really centered around Voltaire and him kind of learning how to duel and writing things and dealing with all of this other stuff. She really is like a buddy character.

[00:58:59] She's there for him when he's sick. He shows up for her plays. But he's also kind of hers in that, like, yeah, she's going to be the lead in his play. Yeah, absolutely. She's going to bring his stuff to life. We have an amazing actress playing Adrienne LeCouvre, Georgia Hurst, who was in Vikings, played Torby in Vikings. If you're a Vikings fan, you'll recognize our Adrienne. Ah, nice. That's so cool. I hate Vikings. Good.

[00:59:28] It's a little bit less wimps call, that one. For sure. Oh, God. I watched way too much of Vikings for how much I hated it. Well, then you don't think you can say you hated it. I think it was the theme tune. Oh. So the other thing that I learned about Adrienne was that she seemed to have kind of changed how people acted at the time.

[00:59:56] She was part of this kind of new movement, which we see depicted in the show, which is a little bit more subtle. I didn't pick up on it. So when Voltaire is, like, kind of reworking Oedipus and he meets this other girl who's an actress and they're working on the scenes together, they do this really over-the-top, really stylized loads of gestures kind of, like, saying the lines.

[01:00:22] And then when Adrienne picks up the character, she does it very, very differently. And I noticed the shift, but I didn't know that this was part of, like, historically a really big shift in theatre, like, in French theatre at the time. I'm not sure. I can't really speak too much to French theatre at the time. I have to say the 18th century actually is not my historical time period that I ever in studied too much.

[01:00:48] It's not this – like, the early 1700s, like, the first half of the 1700s is a little bit of a vortex. Like, not a lot of period dramas are focused on it. And we talked about this a little bit when we covered The Favourite. Like, where are the Stuart period dramas? The wigs are so incredible. The shoes are so slutty. How are people overlooking it? It was such a problem to the point that when The Favourite was being made, there were no costumes that people could go to.

[01:01:17] Like, in storage, people had to be really, really inventive with the costumes. Yeah, we had the same thing when we were producing the short. I mean, it's not something that you can just go to the Royal Shakespeare Company and say, can we have the 1700s outfits? It's really not covered that much. We were lucky in that a few of the creatives we have working on the short film make these outfits themselves. So, specialise in this time period and have made dresses. I mean, they're incredible. But it was the same for our hair team, our makeup team, our production design team.

[01:01:48] It's not very widely documented either. And so, you don't have loads and loads of sources you can draw on. And I think people tend to fall either side of it a little bit, time period-wise. But we also have Savage House that came out with Claire Foy and I think it's Richard E. Grant. That film came out recently in that kind of the same time period. Like Rococo time period. Richard E. Grant in a cascading wig, yeah? Yes, exactly. Yes. And that came out recently.

[01:02:16] So, maybe it's getting a little bit more attention now. We'll see. Here's hoping. Yeah, maybe Voltaire and Love bringing a bit more kind of orgy awareness to the time period as well is important. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, one thing I asked you to do was come up with an award to give this production. How did you do?

[01:02:40] So, okay, I'm going to have to come up with on the spot because I read that email as something that you normally do is come up with an award for the production. I didn't realize I was also coming up with one. See, I thought I was really clever because normally I forget to tell guests and then kind of in the middle of recording I'll be like, by the way, ad-libbing. And they love it. I like it. I like it. So, how do I go first? Yeah. So, I am to nod about this.

[01:03:09] Of course, a special shout out to the truly terrible subtitles, which unfortunately will not be as terrible in the future. So, it will be less hilarious. But that is not something that the show itself did. So, I can't give that as an award. Now, I can't decide what I want to actually go with. I know. I think there's one moment of the show that will always stand out in my head. So, I think the award will have something to do with that.

[01:03:38] The birthing scene. Yes. Like most spectacular vulva or something. You know. Most spectacular vulva in a period drama. I think that's fair. I think that's fair. I think that's well-deserved. It's unique. That's never been given before. I doubt that it'll ever be given again. There we go. That can be my one then. Because that really is an outstanding moment. It was upsettingly realistic. Yeah.

[01:04:08] And I very much like that it was a surprise. Yeah. No. None of this is a bad thing. No. It's good. It's good. I think that kind of real depiction on the screen is incredibly important. It'd be much better in the sex ed class than anything I saw when I was in biology classes growing up. But, yeah. I think that's got to be my award. I love it.

[01:04:33] I have already also given a shout out to the orgy to episode ratio, which I think is technically the highest in anything that we've seen. Although it did set a precedent that then it could not deliver on because there was not an orgy per episode, which was slightly disappointing. So I think I'm going to go with best ghost voiceover. Oh, nice.

[01:05:00] Because having the ghost of Voltaire talking everyone through his death and then his birth and then his life was really great. And I like the ghost of Voltaire as a character because unlike real Voltaire, he seemed like a laugh. He was slightly more entertained by his antics than the real Voltaire. Yeah. It was a ghost with some crack. Voltaire had no crack.

[01:05:32] Yeah, I like that. I like that. Brilliant. Oh, Imogen, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a joy to talk about this series and the short film a little bit as well. And the historical context side of things, I'm very glad that article came up for you when you looked it up. That's exactly what we want to be doing. So it's great. I'm glad that these series are getting a little bit of attention. Can you tell us a little bit about exactly where you can find your flicks and what platforms and in what countries?

[01:06:02] Yes. You can watch your flicks in UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. You can watch straight from your browser. You can download on your phone or you can download straight from your Apple TV, Roku TV, Fire TV 6 or Google Play. Brilliant. Yeah, I watched it on my TV. Very good. That's the best way I feel. Thank you. Okay, brilliant.

[01:06:29] And if you want to get a subscription to your flicks, specifically an annual subscription to your flicks, and you would like to get 50% off that subscription, you can use our discount code, your flicks, sal. Your flicks, S-A-L, all one word. Yeah, it's a hard one. There's so many instances where I feel like four letters would have made more sense, but it's okay. No, no, no. We've got very intelligent listeners.

[01:07:00] Great. Well, thank you so much for having me. It's been great to chat to you and we will hopefully talk to you soon. Until then, keep on keeping on with your flicks. And now we're all going to say goodbye. Goodbye. It's all finished.

[01:07:25] This podcast is part of Podomity, the UK's podcast comedy network. Why not laugh at what else we've got? Visit Podomity.com.