Jules et Marcel

In the West End of 1950s London, plans for a movie version of a smash-hit play come to an abrupt halt after a pivotal member of the crew is murdered. When world-weary Inspector Stoppard and eager rookie Constable Stalker take on the case, the two find themselves thrown into a puzzling whodunit within the glamorously sordid theater underground, investigating the mysterious homicide at their own peril.

Tartuffe, a hypocritical man confided in false devotion, monopolizes the confidence of Orgon, a wealthy bourgeois and undertakes to seduce his wife Elmire. Having been unmasked by the latter, he strives to precipitate the ruin of his benefactor.

Witty, playful and utterly magical, the story is a compelling romantic adventure in which Rosalind and Orlando's celebrated courtship is played out against a backdrop of political rivalry, banishment and exile in the Forest of Arden - set in 19th-century Japan.

The action is set in Naples, opening a door onto an imagined maritime world stretching towards the Orient. Faced with two authoritarian fathers, two sons, both of whom are thwarted lovers, turn to the crafty Scapin, who is driven by a mad desire for revenge. The character is a double of Scaramouche, the Italian actor of the adventurous life whom Molière admired: “to tell you the truth, there are few things that are impossible for me, when I put my mind to them” declares the buffoonish servant whose name, as Denis Podalydès points out, derives his from the Italian scappare which means “to escape”, “to scamper off”. Scapin is beaten with a stick at one point but also gets his own back and, against a background of ransom demands and paternal contradictions, he comes up with an avalanche of stratagems and other tricks, which Molière excels in depicting.

At only 23 years old, Edouard Couret has everything to succeed: he is young, he is handsome, he is about to get married and, above all, he is running to become a Conservative MP. The only problem is that for the past three years, Edouard has also been in a love affair with Georges, a man who can't stand this situation any longer and who is going to put him up against the wall.

After being dumped by her live-in boyfriend, an unemployed dancer and her 10-year-old daughter are reluctantly forced to live with a struggling off-Broadway actor.