Patrice Lecomte directed the cult comedies Les Bronzés and Les Bronzés font du ski in the late 1970s, which qualifies him for a place in our dinky pantheon. His crackling dialogue and regular slot in Christmas TV schedules have already earned him crack-up immortality, but his background, the field in which he blossomed, was in comics and comedy. Patrice Lecomte used to draw a strip for Pilote, a crucible of teen culture in the 60s and 70s, before working Paris’s fringe cabaret circuit, which explains why comedic geniuses Gotlib and Coluche co-starred in his feature film début, shot on a shoestring, Les vécés étaient fermés de l’intérieur. Nowadays, stand-up comics are front and center, scoring millions of views. Lecomte was ahead of the curve.

The world of Patrice Lecomte, who has always been fascinated by Tintin and Groucho Marx, stretches from Dubillard to Simenon, from buddy movies to gentle oddities, from roll-in-the-aisle gags to shivers down the spine. With his attention to colors, rhythms and moods, he has navigated a route as a creator who never takes the same river twice. Variety as the elixir of life? Perhaps. He has enjoyed huge box-office success (Ridicule, Les Spécialistes), while taking surprising new directions (Tandem, The Hairdresser’s Husband) for over forty years now, zig-zagging smoothly from one genre to the next. What better reason for an episode of Transmission.

Thomas Baumgartner
A young man of radio, Thomas Baumgartner worked at Radio France and ARTE Radio before presenting shows on Radio France Culture (Les passagers de la nuit, L’atelier du son, Supersonic), then becoming editorial director at Radio Nova (2016-2018). He has since created his own podcast studio, wave.audio, which produces content, notably for leading daily newspaper Le Monde.