The Big Bad Wolf

Based on L’Homme à l’envers (Seeking Whome He May Devoyr) by Fred Vargas

Published by Viviane Hamy Editions

2025

Visual and soound recording of the inmates is not authorised by law. The pictures below have been taken in the workshop.

The project

The project was a collaboration between the International Pole for Puppetry, the Remand Centre of Charleville-Mézières, the Penitentiary Integration and Probation Service of Ardennes and Papierthéâtre Company. The inmates started the workshops at the beginning of July 2025. They read the novel, imagined the characters and the sceneries and drew them. The drawings left the Remand Centre and were cut out by cutter at the workshop of the Company. They returned to the penitentiary building to get fixed on their bases and to be manipulated. The work continued all summer long and some participants changed. After two and a half months of four days a week workshop, the show was performed twice on the 22nd and 23rd of September 2025, as part of the World Festival of Puppet Theatres in Charleville-Mézières.

Adaptation and direction: Narguess Majd

Conception, construction, acting and manipulation: Inmates of the Remand Centre of Charleville-Mézières

Cut out: Alain Lecucq