Marie-Chantal Toupin’s passion for broccoli, Michel Girouard’s visceral hatred of bisexuals or “Mad Dog” Vachon who uses the n-word profusely: the autobiographies of stars are an endless source of ridicule. For 15 years, other stars have enjoyed reading excerpts from it as part of the Bio degradable tray. A resolutely mocking event that will last as long as celebrities believe that their banal existence is so interesting that it is worth writing a book about.
“What amazes me, after 15 years, is that the stars don’t seem to have understood the message! Very bad autobiographies are still being published, to our great delight”, launches with a touch of irony the producer Didier Morissonneau, to whom we owe the exercise.
The concept is simple: artists read passages from the autobiographies of stars on stage, each one more impertinent than the next. There are of course the classics, like Jacques Boulanger’s bio, in which the host ofHello Boubou gushed about how he shaves every morning. Or even the Diary of a lofteusethat the semi-finalist of the 2006 edition of loft story Elisabetta Fantone had published from the height of her 26 years. Other jewels of the genre have been added over the years, such as From Beauce to Nashville, all dreams are allowed, of country singer Robby Johnson.
A bottomless pit
For the sake of renewal, Didier Morissonneau makes a point of reading everything that is published in Quebec in the autobiographical genre. And each time, he unearths pearls.
“As a result of being asked by gossip magazines what they’ve been up to this summer and being asked other trivial questions, celebrities come to think that their lives are interesting. But this is a big misunderstanding. In reality, their life does not interest anyone. People buy these magazines for the photos, essentially”, maintains the producer of the show, who also underlines that most of the works read during the Bio degradable tray were not bestselling books, far from it.
It would therefore be out of narcissism more than mercantilism that stars of all kinds flood bookstores with their moods.
Still, publishers also find their account. “It’s boring to say, but it’s an industry that depends a lot on subsidies. And subsidies come with quantity. The temptation is therefore there to publish very quickly. There are many texts that we read at the Cabaret which are very badly edited; the fault often lies more with the editor than with the star”, notes Didier Morissonneau.
Make no mistake, however: the producer of the Bio degradable tray has nothing against star autobiographies per se. If many provoke hilarity in spite of themselves, there are quite a few which are nevertheless worthy of mention and which have real literary value.
He cites in particular those of Dominique Michel, Guy Latraverse and Gilles Latulippe, each of which recounts whole sections of the history of the Quebec entertainment industry. No second degree here.
“There are really books that I start reading thinking it’s going to be funny and which turn out to be very interesting in the end. Everything is in the content, in the experience. A career spanning 50 years sure isn’t like someone who’s had a single hit “, he observes.
Funny without knowing it
The first edition of Bio degradable tray took place in 2008 at the Café Cléopâtre, a rather incongruous place to hold such an event. Already, the quirky tone was given. Several of the artists of the troupe, such as Anaïs Favron or Rémi-Pierre Paquin, have become regulars and have taken pleasure in interpreting texts that are however insipid.
Comedian Sylvain Larocque, for his part, was there from the start. He never had the shame to make fun of the biography of personalities from the artistic world that he could meet later.
“They just don’t have to write it down,” he replies. All we do is read verbatim what is written. We don’t do this to laugh at the world, we just point out the absurdity. There are texts that are so funny, and the people who wrote it don’t seem to realize it. Reality exceeds fiction. »
The man who is now a municipal councilor in Longueuil undoubtedly has a more hectic life than several stars who have published their autobiographies. But his experience in the Bio degradable tray dissuades him for the time being from following their example.