François Morel, like good wine

The radio humor column is quite an art. Rare are those who, practicing it, see their projections pass the ramp of time. Many do not survive it. It takes a lot of talent. By this yardstick, the epigrammatic morning Philippe Meyer, on France Inter, has never been replaced. We sometimes think of it while listening, rather by undergoing, in the morning, in the sections of information, the parade of the Stakhanovists of the poilade, appointed to “entertain” the listener. To highlight the desired effect of this competition of fine irony, around them, stooges dedicate themselves to gutting employees. We want to tell them to spare them this embarrassing chore: forced laughter, it sounds funny, do you know? The microphone, like the camera, is a magnifying glass.

Among this cohort, sometimes pathetic, often exasperating, of attendants at the marrade, of laborious sneers, of satisfied jesters, of obsessed with the gaudriole, of sulphurists without risk slip in, from time to time, a juggler of nonsense, an elf of the pun, inspired by the nonsense, a genius of the calembredaine, an esthete of nonsense, an ace of buffoonery, a virtuoso of the coquecigrue, a goldsmith of the witticism.

We are then on Friday. At 8:55 am, on France Inter, François Morel finally appears. The air becomes lighter. The listener rises, lets himself be carried away by the skill of this Norman who, like a good wine, strengthens with age, gains in taste with final notes that delight the Eustachian tube. The former resident of the great troop of Deschiens has renewed his range to turn into a prodigy of the near.

In the preface to his complete works (1), François Morel warns his little comrades: “There is nothing worse than the agreed revolt, the cushy insurrection. As many mistakes as he has the courtesy to spare us when so many comedians fall into this convenient complacency. He strolls in the footsteps of Alphonse Allais, in the coattails of Alexandre Vialatte, in the wake of Raymond Devos, eyeing Marcel Aymé.

A zest of tenderness, a pinch of acidity, the sly Morel, this impertinent so relevant, great destroyer of invading stupidity, also releases healthy and cold anger which purges our repressed ires. With him, we enter the realm of poetry. Suspended time, parenthesis, intermission in the course of days. “When people ask me if we can laugh at everything, I answer that we don’t have to. » François Morel, or the hygiene of the mind.

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