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The Théâtre Itinérant de Tours presents a motoring mystery
Gather round, folks, gather round! Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, we present a grand performance at the Hotel Le Bordeaux in Tours, where the Tours Amateur Opera Society will perform for your viewing pleasure a unique version of La Traviata, sung and instrumentally accompanied by by an all-star cast of talented young actors and musicians!
Okay, honesty compels us to say that we don’t really know anything about this scene at all, so all we’ve just said is pure fiction. What we do know is that the photograph was taken in the city of Tours in the 1950s, but the occasion could be anything. A festival or carnival? A school performance? A traveling theatre company?
The few clues don’t help us much. The photographic agency Photo Neveu is hardly known to the worldwide web (an address of 30, rue Colbert in Tours is all we found), Maison Annie in Tours is more obscure still and the same may be said for Nicaud’s radio shop. Nicaud’s little camionette in the background could be just about anything, too.
Having examined everything else, we come to the main subject of the picture: the people carrier avant la lettre with its wooden wheels, acetylene gas lights and Hôtel/Restaurant Le Bordeaux banners. Other than a hotel bus of some description, what might it be? Would anyone care to tell us?
Words: Jeroen Booij; picture: Photo Neveu, source unknown
Published:
Tuesday February 28th, 2023
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Comments
Roger Garnett
19 March 2023, 19:40
This one looks like a parade - see the crowd on the side looking at the theatre wagon, and the folks to the right are already looking at something else coming.
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Ariejan Bos
28 February 2023, 16:38
It's evidently a Panhard & Levassor hotel omnibus from the 1907-1910 period. Exact date hard to determine, but this will be about right. The hotel already existed then, but if the Panhard was in their possession from that time on, that is a question that is hard to answer.
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Ariejan Bos
28 February 2023, 16:37
It's evidently a Panhard & Levassor hotel omnibus from the 1907-1910 period. Exact date hard to determine, but this will be about right. The hotel already existed then, but if the Panhard was in their possession from that time on, that is a question that is hard to answer.
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Laurent ZOLLER
28 February 2023, 13:05
Hello
Mr. Henri Nicaud had a store at 22 rue Roger Salengro in TOURS from 1966 to 1988.
He sold electrical equipment, radio sets and household appliances.
Is the one ?
Laurent ZOLLER
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Mr. Henri Nicaud had a store at 22 rue Roger Salengro in TOURS from 1966 to 1988.
He sold electrical equipment, radio sets and household appliances.
Is the one ?
Laurent ZOLLER
Nick Simpson
28 February 2023, 10:34
Philippe Nicau was a French radio star/disc jockey of the 1950's - perhaps he was reporting or part of an act in Bordeaux and perhaps the van was part of his publicity machine?
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