They are between 23 and 37 years old. They embody the rich diversity – of influences, approaches, backgrounds, backgrounds – of a comic ecosystem in full transformation. They are, above all, very funny. La Presse presents five comedians to keep an eye on in the coming months.
Born in Montreal, Garihanna Jean-Louis traveled all her youth between Haiti and Quebec, depending on the political instability and the sadly numerous tragedies that struck the island of origin of her parents. But following the death of her father, the young woman left her studies in criminology and her job as a police cadet at the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal to make her life there.
An amateur actress, in 2013 she participated in an internship given in Port-au-Prince by the National School of Humor (ENH), at the end of which Louise Richer offered her a scholarship to continue her training. Garihanna Jean-Louis thus became the first black woman to graduate from the ENH in 2017. “In my head, at the beginning, I was convinced that we were going to put on comedies by Molière or commedia dell’arte,” laughs the one who then knew more about the great playwrights than the art of stand-up.
Why did she inflict what she now calls “torture” on herself by going on stage alone? “Because I want to believe that I have a story to tell. And until I have told all my life stories, my resilience, all this mango and maple flavor that is in me, I will be humorous. »
A blessing and a burden. This is how Garihanna, 33, describes her pioneering status. “No one asked me to be a role model or an inspiration,” says the one who is sorry that the young people in the schools where she offers workshops generally have American artists as their heroes. “But the reality is that there is a whole community that is counting on me. I can’t behave just any way. »
His goal ? “I don’t want to open doors, I want to blow them open and leave them open, so that the women who are going to come after me have it easy. His first show is called Mèsi Lavi! “Because I have great gratitude for all the misfortunes that have happened to me,” she insists. “I have a gratitude for the beautiful and for the ugly, because without the ugly, I wouldn’t have all this sensitivity today. »
Has Charles Brunet ever considered enrolling in the National School of Humor? “For real, never in life,” he burst out laughing. ” Never. Never. If I do humor, it’s because I didn’t want to continue school. »
At 23, the comedian born in Saint-Lambert has nothing of a soft side and claims a career that would almost allow him to describe himself as a veteran: his first appearances on stage date back to his 16 years, in Montreal cafes that agreed to make room for him in the lineup of their open mics, and even in bars, elsewhere in Quebec, where his father accompanied him.
Excuse the cliché: to see Charles Brunet on stage for even 30 seconds is to instantly measure how born for this profession he was. And if he struggles to explain why he once felt the call of humor, it is mainly because he does not remember not having carried it within him.
“For me, humor is housed in the truth”, thinks the one who is soon going on tour with his friends Anas Hassouna and Oussama Fares, and who likes more and more to drill, with his numbers on sexuality, divorce or cultural differences, the boundary between what hurts and what provokes laughter.
With his 21,000 followers on Instagram, Charles Brunet may not be a star in the traditional sense of the word, but he is certainly one for a whole generation in which the telephone screen has replaced the television screen.
Become one of the best-known faces of Quebec humor? Charles Brunet has the potential. “But I don’t have dreams of grandeur. My main goal is for my show to be fucking crazy. »
At 37, Josiane Aubuchon is undeniably the oldest of the quintet of comedians brought together by La Presse. Insulting, to still be associated with the proverbial succession? ” No not at all. All trajectories are different, ”replies the one who graduated from the National School of Humor in 2012, but whose career has taken off more since Quebec has deconfined.
The comedian, however, almost gave up everything during the pandemic, to the point of consulting a counselor, who will struggle to offer him another avenue than that of laughter. So much the better: in 2022, she presented a show every 22nd of the month, a feat that she currently repeats every 14th.
So was it Josiane Aubuchon who was able to unlock the hearts of the audience or the audience who were finally ready to welcome her? “It’s a sweet mix of both,” she replies, blushing. The older I get, the less time I have to pretend I’m something I’m not. »
Adversity? Josiane Aubuchon, raised in Saint-Norbert on a dairy farm, has extensive experience. At 20, she was expelled from the École Supérieure de Théâtre by professors who recommended that she turn to humor. And who were right. His number on masturbation, one example among others, is worthy of the best shows currently on tour in Quebec.
A lot of comedians complain about how painful going to a “corporate” show is. “Me, I’m one of those who don’t hate it at all,” says Josiane Aubuchon, who immediately inspires an irresistible familiarity. “I can speak to an audience of truck drivers as well as a congress of hairdressers. When I do shows during the holidays, I often get invited to one another’s parties. I can easily be imagined on the edge of any punch bowl. »
It is first his smile that seizes. Even when recounting painful events, Anne-Sarah Charbonneau displays an irresistible banana, as if she had just received the most beautiful gift, or discovered a superpower. “I always feel more like myself when I’m on stage,” she explains with…a big smile. “On a day-to-day basis, I’m less likely to be flamboyantly myself. »
Flamboyantly? The former Anne-Sarah would no doubt have apologized for making up a word, but not the one in front of us who, at 25, happily embraces all that she is.
It was upon her arrival in Montreal, in 2017, that the native of Lévis discovered humor by attending evenings in bars, at the same time as her feminist and queer awakening unfolded. “It was seeing people like Coco Belliveau or Colin Boudrias, she says, that I understood that, ah OK, you can be vulnerable on stage. We can talk about his identity, his values. »
Since 2021, she has co-hosted, with her friend Noémie Leduc-Roy, the Womansplaining Show, a feminist comedy cabaret bringing together only women and people of sexual and gender diversity. Things are changing, she rejoices. “[But] before the pandemic, we realized that there was never more than one girl in the parties we attended. »
You won’t often come across a comedian describing his stand-up approach using the word empathy. Yet it is the one chosen by Anne-Sarah Charbonneau. She speaks in her show Amourpropre about the shame that her homosexuality has long nurtured in her. “But I am convinced that it can reach everyone, underlines the co-host of the podcast Not little proud. What I want is to influence people to love themselves as they are. “Love each other as we are? There are indeed few tasks so universally difficult.
P-O Forget worked for a “pretty corporate” advertising company and felt his soul slowly, but surely, wither. Respond to “internal communication mandates for Desjardins or write salmon pâté ads for Normandin”? It had “no creative dimension,” recalls the 31-year-old comedian, who grew up in Val-Bélair.
In order not to sink, the desperate editor-designer then begins, as a dabbler, to write jokes in the margins of his files, the basis of a number that he will present at the open mic of the Bordel Comédie Club, a evening that would become the first day of the rest of his life. His discovery of Louis C.K. had opened his eyes to the infinite possibilities of stand-up. “He made me understand, he says, the absolute carte blanche we had in the themes, the subjects, the choice of words. »
On the mic, P-O Forget embodies a slightly offbeat, both more ethereal and naïve version of who he is on a daily basis. With his deep voice of an eternal teenager, his stage character is the type to multiply the observations of great insight, in the tone of one who does not fully grasp the scope of his remarks.
His idea of appropriate interaction with his audience? Ask the spectators, as a curtain raiser, if there are any Nazis in the room! Political humor? Not in the sense that we often hear it in Quebec.
He won’t say no, of course, if we invite him to do the column on the radio or on TV – we can already hear him on ICIPremière at Everything can happen. “But comedians in Quebec take such a place, they are on all the sets… Me, my only real ambition is to become, like Simon Leblanc or a Simon Gouache, a comedian who is first associated at the scene. »
