By Toutatis!, you can keep your 'progress'

Most of Janvry's 636 villagers take part in its plays

JANVRY - Menaced by the irresistible advance of a brainless alien culture, there is one French village that has sworn never to surrender.

That may sound like the start of an Asterix story but we are talking of the present, not of Roman times. The community in question is not a Gaulish hamlet but a pretty village built of stone with a moated chateau and medieval church.

Janvry could be anywhere in rural France. It is, in fact, 32km south of central Paris. Creeping forward on all sides are the motorways, superstores, bungalows, tyre franchises, fast-food restaurants and furniture showrooms that have turned the outer suburbs of greater Paris into America-sur-Seine.

Janvry has found a magic potion to resist submission to commuter-land nonentity, blandness and selfishness. Every two years or so, the village becomes a kind of suburban Oberammergau, staging an epic, elaborate musical play in which most of the 636 villagers play some part.

I went along two years ago, expecting to be underwhelmed, and was astonished by the extravagance and professionalism of the show. I went again this year to see Les Secrets de la Licorne (The Secrets of the Unicorn).

It has an original script, written, as usual, by the 51-year-old mayor, Christian Schoettl. It has a burning village. It has 62 actors, aged between 79 and 10 months, all but one of whom (guess which) speaks or sings. It has a mysterious green fog from which a live unicorn emerges, to die on stage and then be resurrected. It has three horses, two cows, a baby llama, a municipal camel called Victor and two donkeys descended from animals that used to belong to Ingrid Bergman.

Most of the animals belong to the village. In between biannual performances, they form a petting zoo and are loaned out to villagers to mow their lawns.

The hero of the story is, as usual, the village of Janvry itself, in medieval times. With the help of its magic unicorn, the village remains a sanctuary of modest, community values, resisting the casual ignorance and violence of the world outside.

There are plenty of laughs in the Janvry show, usually at the expense of neighbouring villages. There is also, however, a subtle message about identity and rejection of outsiders and the preservation of values. A troupe of Arabs (accompanied by the camel, Victor) is told to camp elsewhere. In revenge, they reveal the unicorn's secret to two hunters who shoot the animal for its horn (presumably not realising it is made of wobbly plastic).

The theme is applicable more widely to a France anxious to maintain its identity in a global sea of sameness. Putting up crude barriers, and rejecting outsiders, is not necessarily the way to preserve what you hold most dear.

Schoettl said: "There is an Asterix side to what we are doing, struggling to preserve our identity, except that Asterix is always fighting and hurting people. We want to entertain people, to amuse people, to persuade people that, look, it doesn't all have to be anonymous housing estates and shopping malls. There can be islands of beauty and community."

- INDEPENDENT