I wrote "Le Petoman" six years ago whilst living in France. The slim biography of his life left enough gaps to fill with imagination. I was afraid that an in-depth study of the man's life would rob me of the imagination that I wanted to wrap around the bare bones of the biography. Did I do wrong? Should my R&D have been more exhaustive? No, is the answer, for me there's enough there to "stand up in court" as it were. Selling a play about a man who farted for a living has been almost impossible. No matter how I try to camouflage the themes of the play, it still comes down to the word "fart". Salisbury Playhouse picked it up briefly a while ago now but rejected it because the AD couldn't imagine "sophisticated Home Counties audiences" warming to the subject matter. I had to laugh though as Le Petoman packed the music halls of Paris and Le Moulin Rouge for twenty years a century ago. I've sporadically tried to interest theatre producers in the UK to at least read the damn thing but to no avail. So I've posted it here in the hope that at least one or two people might read it in its entirety "Le Petoman - the funniest comedy never to have been performed" . . . yet.

I have heard about his chap - i think i may even have seen a very old b/w movie clip, or at least a sound recording, of one of his perfomances.
Have you considered getting a group of Uni students together and staging it at the Edinburgh Fringe? Looks like the sort of thing that would be right up their street.


- NaomiM