It is not given to all comedians to present their show at the Bell Centre. Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais seized this incredible opportunity and turned it into a very pleasant evening.
The challenge was very big. To meet it, Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais announced to us that he would present us with 372 jokes, including one, the final, which would be “the best”. When we saw it at its launch in the fall of 2021, for the first version of Jokes Chapeau Maman Magie Piano, it presented 312, during a show at L’Olympia which convinced us.
“It’s sick, we’re 700!” “Launched the comedian to an almost full house of 8,000 people when he arrived on stage, before a fun introductory video.
Unlike his show in a small room, where the decor is elementary, this time he bet on a deployment at the height of the moment (we were even treated to fireworks).
True to form, the 28-year-old comedian used both his musical talents and his storytelling skills to entertain his audience.
And as long as he is on the Bell Center stage, he has joined a group of seven musicians (the Ouellette Family), deployed on the stage.
And as long as he had musicians on stage with him, he sometimes interacted with them, for gags that led to musical numbers (including the one on the hats, as ridiculous as a musical number on the hats can be ).
Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais spoke of his fear of social networks, which certainly allowed him to fill a Bell Center, but which also have a little too much influence on us.
He played the comedian who thinks he’s a “star”, he talked about his relationship to people who rate anything and everything online, he talked about his relationship to public comments and his bad eating habits. He also made farts and butt jokes.
Most of his jokes hit home with the Bell Center crowd.
When he takes the time to share anecdotes with us, Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais excels. A good storyteller, he recreates moments in life that often make people laugh, or at the very least smile.
He was also good when he briefly interacted with someone in the crowd, a young spectator dreaming of becoming a comedian.
The song that followed, about losing his heart as a child, for which he was accompanied by a choir, was one of the best. The comedian is also often excellent when he sings.
“It’s thanks to my parents that I do this in life,” he said before recounting the moment he went on stage for the first time, during a show by Louis-José Houde, invited by the comedian himself.
Another good moment of the evening: when he accumulated the annoying jokes, before “realizing” that his joke had “gone in the butter”. Disappointed with his performance, he withdrew, looking down… before returning dressed in a basketball jersey for a hip-hop number on jokes that don’t lift.
As soon as he got comfortable on stage, Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais was very solid in front of the huge floor and the crowded stands, at ease as if he did not have several thousand people. behind him. However, the impressive crowd was there, looking delighted by what the comedian presented to him, often hilarious.
The “best joke”, the one we announced from the start, finally happened. After raising expectations a lot, the comedian finally invited on stage the young girl who dreamed of becoming a comedian (as Louis-José Houde had done with him in his childhood). The moment could have been completely touching… but Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais made sure his show was absurd to the end.
The challenge of a comedy show at the Bell Center was very big. Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais picked it up well.
