“What I miss a lot is live”

TF1 is launching a new TV show on Friday aimed at 8/14 year olds: Dream Team, the next generation of stars. At its head, an enthusiastic Hélène Mannarino. “The mentors are part of the team, they are in the competition!”

Journalist and TV and radio presenter, Hélène Mannarino plays opposite Nicolas Canteloup every evening in C’est Canteloup on TF1. She has just joined Bruce Toussaint’s morning news, Bonjour!, for an Unexpected Portrait and continues, among other things, her recordings for Emergency Calls, a reporting program on TFX. From Friday January 19 at 9:10 p.m., Hélène Mannarino will also be at the helm of a new family program, a new telecrochet, Dream Team: the next generation of stars. Six teams of five young singers aged 8 to 14, led by an artist, in this case Jenifer, Matt Pokora, Lara Fabian, Claudio Capéo, Black M and Camille Lellouche who will compete by singing alone or together. It is the public and a jury composed of Anggun, Lorie Pester, Michael Jones and Chris Marques who will referee this new competition. Only one team and its mentor will be chosen as winners.

franceinfo : You have been present on the TF1 morning show, Bonjour!, since the 8th January and you record C’est Canteloup in the afternoon ? You still have a life ?

Hélène Mannarino: Yes, there is the recording of C’est Canteloup and the preparation of the portraits for the morning show, which is a huge investigative task since you have to call relatives, write and then prepare the elements. Sometimes there are also the filming of the show Emergency Calls, Incredible Weddings, well, lots of things, but it’s exciting. I am very happy.

What is your first assessment of the TF1 morning show with Bruce Toussaint?

A very good record. I want to talk about this team spirit that was immediately established. We worked a lot before launching the morning show. We all have this same desire, this same motivation and I think that you can feel it on the air. We are headed by our dad, Bruce, who is very unifying and unifying. And then we all have very different personalities. We respect each other, we listen to each other, we want this morning to work, we give everything for it. And I am very happy to have been able to find my portrait.

That you did on the radio, the Unexpected Portrait of the Cultural Guest. Is writing different for radio or TV?

It’s different because on TV, there is the image and you therefore have to dress up the portraits with photos, take that aspect into account. And then the columnists are present too, so there is a reaction, much more than on the radio, but the subject remains the same, to seek out new information…

And make your guest cry, you love that!

Provoke an emotion. And sometimes it results in laughter, tears. It depends.

You have totally and definitively abandoned pure and hard news. You presented the LCI morning show for a season. It’s finish ?

No. It’s not over because I’m very attached to information. I miss her. It’s really an area that fascinates me. That’s also why being in this morning allows me to get a foot in the news again, to get back to editorial conferences, etc.

But why did you stop after one season?

It’s a question of opportunity. I had an extremely rich year of mornings. It was the year of the presidential election, the war in Ukraine. And then there was this proposal for C’est Canteloup.

“I love new challenges, I love new challenges, but I didn’t say to myself: I’m stopping the news, I’m moving on to entertainment. No, life is made up of cycles, of stages.”

Helene Mannarino

at franceinfo

There is indeed a shift towards entertainment and in particular with this new show Dream Team : The next generation of stars. This is the first time that you have presented such a large program on a large stage with an audience. It’s not live. How did you feel in this blockbuster?

It’s true that it’s a great production. There was apprehension, stress, legitimate questions: am I going to be able to? Isn’t it too big? But I felt very good because I was very well supported. I gave it my all, I knew everything by heart beyond the mechanics of the show, the anecdotes about the artists, the mentors, the children. So I just had to mix it all together and enjoy and also realize how lucky I was to do this show.

Tell us about the concept of Dream team. It’s a bit like The Voice Kids but as a team?

It’s not the same, but we find talents from The Voice Kids. The particularity of this show is above all that the mentors are part of the team. They have five children with them and they want to win. They want to take their team as far as possible and they are completely in the competition, even more than the children. That is to say that Matt Pokora is very competitive, who has this desire to win, etc. it was : “Let’s go guys! There’s no friendship!” while he is very good friends with Jenifer. Sometimes it was amazing to see that even children could coach their mentor. They face each other in a duel. Afterwards, there are rather solo events judged by a panel of personalities. The public also votes. It’s an extremely benevolent competition. I was extremely moved to see these children, this surpassing of oneself, to see the parents in the audience, their looks on the little ones who were singing, and then the pride of the artists, the pride of the children among themselves when they came back from the stage after a solo. I adore !

What’s next for you? A big live prime time?

Ah, I would love to! We were talking about the news earlier, what I really miss is live. It’s true that the LCI morning show, the news, or even when I was a columnist, the news that breaks, processing the information, accompanying the viewer, something that happens live on set, all that is is an adrenaline rush that I miss a lot.

What show are you dreaming of then?

I don’t know if it still exists.