Hear, hear and, all business ceasing, turn on the radio. Because what you are about to hear is wonderful and might even fill you with joy. Because all you have to do is turn on your set to be instantly transported to the island of Lilliput as imagined by Jonathan Swift in 1721 and put on the air by Laure Egoroff. Oh no, it’s true that before you had to survive a storm, pull in the windshields and bring back the parrots; moor the cockatoo, uncap the mainsail and furl the jib.

You’re like us poor Earthlings and Gulliver, don’t you get it? “Never mind,” the captain will tell you. Anyway, you and the cook can’t do anything at the moment. We’ll see after the storm: you’ll have your work cut out for you. The gravedigger too. »

Now catch your breath, but hold on a little longer: the water landing will not be easy, because this dear Gulliver will have to thwart the betrayals and assassination attempts fomented against him. And it is all this, and more, that Laure Egoroff offers us in this concert-fiction recorded in public and broadcast today on France Culture. Let’s remember that it was Radio France which, in 2014, imagined this unique form which gives us to hear, and in music (with the Orchester national de France or, as here, the Philharmonic of Radio France) and in words, a great work of popular literature.

success in public

For the director, it all started with her desire to work again with composer Mathieu Lamboley and author Pierre Senges, who, she tells us, has a very personal way of capturing works: “It’s not never a digest, but always a rewrite. In the case of Gulliver’s Travels, I was immediately seduced by his idea of ??varying the points of view, which would allow the actors to have fun. In fact, they are having a great time, and for our greatest pleasure. Whether it’s Antoine Sarrazin (giant Gulliver), Anne-Lise Heimburger (sublime queen and not insensitive to the charms of the aforementioned) or even Benjamin Wangermée and Pauline Belle (priceless Navel and Nostril).

Then, it was necessary to work, for “several months”, with Mathieu Lamboley to determine the color, the role and the place of the music. Finally, on D-Day, admiring how flexible conductor Lucie Leguay made it all work. If the three public recordings were a success, it then took several days of post-production to achieve this version that we can listen to today.

So repeat how, three centuries after the first edition, this text, which is all at once, and as Pierre Senges rightly wrote in his note of intent, “book of adventure, parody of a travelogue, tale for children, philosophical fable and political satire”, transports us and makes us laugh. In different places, depending on our age – which does not spoil anything, quite the contrary.

But come on, shoo, that’s enough: let’s close computers and hatches. Let’s turn on our radios, go into underwater resistance and listen to the captain who, already, resumes: “Don’t worry, man, we’re going home, we’ll be there soon. »