ComediHa! Salutes Montreal | These four emerging comedians salute you

Katherine Levac, Jean-Marc Parent, Phil Roy, Arnaud Soly: there’s no shortage of comedy stars in the ComediHa! lineup, which is coming to Montréal, the comedy festival that succeeds Just for Laughs, from July 18 to 28. But the event will also be an opportunity to discover your new favorite comedian. Here are four of them, The Press suggests that you go and greet him in turn.

From the classroom to the stage

A drunk spectator who heckles her? Nothing to shake Douaa Kachache, a former high school English teacher who, in class, has certainly seen it all. “If you’re in my room and you tease others, first, I’ll confiscate your cell phone, then if you continue, I’ll throw you out,” exaggerates perhaps a little the one who put away her chalks a year ago, but who, in a way, was already practicing her next job, in front of her students. “Casually, for eight years, at the start of each term, I did crowd work, I ran in stock.”

Looking back, it’s clear: Douaa Kachache, a 33-year-old Moroccan who grew up in Longueuil, had everything it took to become a comedian, including the example of a mother who can’t help but let out a laugh, even in the most inappropriate contexts. Anecdote among many others: “I’ve never seen anyone except her come back from a funeral and brag about having destroyed everything because she made everyone else laugh so much.”

“Except that becoming an artist is not a possibility when you grow up in a family of immigrants,” adds Douaa Kachache. “I didn’t even know there was a National School of Humor, otherwise I would have applied there directly. I thought you were born Martin Matte.”

After participating in an amateur competition at Club Soda in 2015, her friends, tired of hearing her talk about her dream without daring to hug her, offered her evening classes at the National School of Humor for her birthday.

Despite her 73,500 subscribers on TikTok, a platform that has blown the wings of her career, Douaa Kachache never feels as useful, as in her place as on a stage, where her numbers draw on her experience as a teacher as well as her love life. You will soon see her opening for François Bellefeuille or Louis T.

“Because I’ve taught a lot to the public,” she explains, “I had students in front of me who came from really poor backgrounds and I always tried, in 75 minutes, to make them forget their problems. I don’t have aspirations of grandeur. All I want to continue to live is the blessed moment when the door of the theater closes and all that matters is what happens between the spectators and me.”

Douaa Kachache will be participating in Arnaud Soly’s Carte blanche on July 25 on the Vidéotron stage at Place des Festivals, in addition to presenting her solo show on July 19 at the Longueuil Comique Fest.

Young Dean

What was Jessica Chartrand’s life like before comedy? “I wouldn’t say I wasn’t going anywhere, but I wasn’t happier than I should have been,” she says. Concretely? For about ten years, she delivered BBQ chicken for a chain with a yellow and red sign.

Véronique Isabel Fillion, her friend with whom she co-hosts the amusing podcast series Wet hensoften teases her – gently – because she didn’t go to CEGEP. “I remember being at the open house,” says the principal concerned, “and having no idea what to sign up for. I didn’t want to waste my parents’ money.”

Jessica Chartrand therefore searched for herself a lot, until during a trip to Portugal and Spain with her sister, she experienced something like an epiphany: upon her return, she absolutely had to enroll at the National School of Humor.

“It’s like it had always been my dream,” she says, recalling the first time she saw Louis-José Houde on stage as a teenager, “but I convinced myself that this dream wasn’t for me, that it belonged to someone else.”

Even though she was not admitted to the main program of the establishment, and had to turn to the bar school, she could no longer ignore what had been dormant in her for too long. “I have never stopped since,” rejoices the one whose first solo show will address the beautiful subject of happy endings and new beginnings, which she is intimate with, both on a professional and personal level.

“If I talk about my new girlfriend on stage, I always make sure to weigh more on the theme, on the situation and on the feelings,” she confides, “and that’s what makes people listen to queer stand-up without realizing it. Because for example, in any couple, there is always someone who is more rigid than the other.”

In absolute terms, Jessica Chartrand is, at 37, a young woman. But she nevertheless belongs to the doyennes, among those who form what is called the next generation of humor. The working title of her first show in the works? New old.

“And it’s not a position I hate,” she quickly adds. I look at my friend Megan [Brouillard]who is a little genius, and me, at 24, I didn’t have that depth. I wouldn’t have known what to talk about. I’m at a point in my life where I know myself a little more, where I’m a little more emotionally solid.” She laughs. “I said a little.”

Jessica Chartrand participates in Katherine Levac’s Queer and friends event on July 19, on the Vidéotron stage at Place des Festivals.

The Michelangelo of laughter

For several months, Mibenson Sylvain left the house in the evening, making his mother believe that he was going to “chill out with friends”, when in reality he was going to try out numbers at open mics in the city.

“I felt like Batman,” laughs the 28-year-old comedian, who was born in Boston but spent his early childhood in Haiti before arriving in Montreal North at the age of 5. A trajectory that is not unrelated to the secrets reserved for his mother, he explains.

A building designer, Mibenson Sylvain came into contact with the world of humor thanks to a colleague who, at work, was constantly sending himself episodes of Under surveillanceMike Ward’s influential podcast series, one of the first of its kind in Quebec. “Before that, I had no idea that in an open mic, just about anyone can get on stage.”

A proud Terrebonnian, the gentilé of the city of Terrebonne where he spent his adolescence, Mibenson Sylvain cites among his role models American icons like Chris Rock, Patrice O’Neal and Kevin Hart, from whom he is certainly an heir considering the explosiveness with which he performs – the verb is not innocently chosen.

“And then there’s also Simon Leblanc,” he says, listing his influences. “Simon Leblanc is a Patnais [ami, en créole] to us Haitians. I listened to his shows with my aunt, who arrived late in Quebec, but who loved him so much.”

What does he aspire to? “You know, the guy who made the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo.” Yes, yes, we put him back. “For real, I dream that the accumulation of all my shows, over the years, will form a ceiling of the Sistine Chapel of humor.” Nothing less.

And now, has his mother seen him in a show? “Oh no, not yet. I wouldn’t be down with that,” replies the son, who would be afraid of shocking her, or that she would learn that she is among the main characters in his numbers.

“But I know that sometimes her friends at work tell her that their daughter follows my videos on Instagram and that it makes her very proud.”

Mibenson Sylvain is participating in Arnaud Soly’s Carte blanche on July 25, on the Vidéotron stage at Place des Festivals.

Finding your truth

A trigger. This is how Liliane Blanco-Binette describes everything that her participation in the Womansplaining Showthe 100% female evening series co-founded by Anne-Sarah Charbonneau, the only other woman in her cohort at the École nationale de l’humour, from which she graduated in 2021.

“Until then, at school, I had always tried to find topics that would please everyone, but especially guys,” she recalls. “I hated being told that my number was less accessible because I talked about a certain subject. At Womansplainingit was the first time I asked myself what my truth was as a woman.

This issue, born out of his irritation with the absurd outfits of women in action films – “Why is the girl in Aquaman “Needs high heels in the water?” – will mark a turning point.

With a classic background of participation in Secondary and Cégeps in shows and improv leagues, Liliane Blanco-Binette always knew that comedy would be her life. But there, finally, she trusted her instinct.

Given her 214,100 followers on TikTok, the finalist of the 2023 edition of Big Brother Celebrities could be satisfied with transposing to the microphone the irresistible madness that she distils in her videos, but considers the stage as the ideal place to explore subjects of a sensitivity that is less suited to the brevity of a capsule designed for telephone screens. Whether it is the relationship with one’s body or painful past relationships.

The American Bo Burnham, one of the masters in the art of giving his spectators the illusion of a dialogue of authentic intimacy, is one of his inspirations.

“I like crying when I watch a movie or listen to a song,” confides the 26-year-old Gatineau native, who owes the surname Blanco to her Spanish mother. “It’s like I need to purge something and I want people to experience that with me too, but through laughter. I love seeing an artist go into what tortures them, what obsesses them, like Bo Burnham and Virginie Fortin do, because I want to feel like I’m conversing with the human behind the artist.”

Liliane Blanco-Binette wants to make you laugh, but also for you to leave with the impression of having had the richest conversation between friends. “Jokes are funny. Jokes are so much fun. But I couldn’t just do jokes. For me, a show is important that it be in the feeling, in the truth, that it be a human-to-human relationship.”

Liliane Blanco-Binette is participating in the Génération Stand-up event on July 21, on the Vidéotron stage at Place des Festivals.

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