High Demolition Shooting | comedy show

The film crew of High demolition recreated a comedy club du Plateau Mont-Royal on Monday afternoon, for the adaptation of Jean-Philippe Baril Guérard’s latest novel for the small screen. The Press met the prolific author and some of the creators of this series expected next winter at Séries+.

Luc Boulanger
The Press

In our age of scandals and serial news, current events are always catching up with fiction. “The morning the Philippe Bond story came out in The Press, I was shooting a scene with the character of Sam, a popular comedian accused of sexual assault who has to retire from public life! “, says director Christian Laurence, on the set of his next series, High demolition.

Will the production be obliged to broadcast a warning? “Any resemblance to existing characters is purely coincidental. “I lived it with wildlife handbook, because the reality of artificial intelligence has also caught up with us. Jean-Philippe is like a diviner. He has an ability to grasp the Zeitgeist, the zeitgeist. »

After wildlife handbook and the world of start-up, Christian Laurence is therefore collaborating for the second time with Baril Guérard by directing the adaptation of the fourth novel by the prolific 33-year-old writer and director. The TV series, which will wrap at the end of August, will star Étienne Galloy and Léane Labrèche-Dor in the main roles of the couple formed by Raph and Laurie. They will be surrounded by Irdens Exantus, Guillaume Gauthier, Carolanne Foucher and several other young performers.

sex, drugs and stand up

High demolition goes behind the scenes in the world of humor. With its ups and downs, its moments of glory and its excesses, its collegiality and its betrayals. In particular, we discuss the rapid rise of young comedians propelled towards popular success, upon leaving the School of Humor. Against the backdrop of a love story that ends in revenge.

Raph, an up-and-coming comedian whose career isn’t taking off enough for his liking, falls in love with Laurie, 10 years his senior, who works in an agency but dreams of becoming a comedy writer. One lacks courage, the other content. The perfect professional and personal marriage. Too much to be sustainable?

The author was inspired by the film Marriage Story to expose the dynamics of a couple of artists who work together, but whose roles are not fair. In High demolition, the woman has a lot more comic instinct than her boyfriend. However, humor remains a masculine stronghold: “Making people laugh is a weapon of seduction. It is very much linked to male identity. There is still a taboo today with very funny women: it’s intimidating for a man, ”says Baril Guérard, who directed a show at Just for Laughs in 2018.

If the parity in humor is far from being comparable to that of contemporary theatre, for example, the playwright does not judge this environment for all that. “Humour is not imposed on anyone in Quebec. Its popularity is real and natural. The comedians do not pound on the new dance or the theater of creation”, says the one whose next play, you are animalwill be premiered at Quat’Sous next January.

Moreover, Baril Guérard collaborates with scriptwriter and humorist Suzie Bouchard on the dialogues of the numbers of stand up in the series. The day of the passage of The Pressthe production was in a bar transformed into comedy clublike Le Bordel or Le Terminal.

In the skin of Raph, Étienne Galloy is delighted to be able to explore all of his “comic and dramatic actor’s palette”. To prepare, the 25-year-old actor consumed a lot of humor and refined a few gags in front of the Brothel audience. “I totally step out of my comfort zone with this very perverse and narcissistic character, a role, of course, very far from me”, says the actor who started playing at 12 years old.

For her part, Léane Labrèche-Dor, who plays Laurie, is familiar with “the world of Baril Guérard” in theater and literature. She appreciates the humanity of her writing.

From one work to another, regardless of their background (law, IT, culture), Jean-Philippe Baril Guérard’s characters have hypertrophied egos. As Laurie says in the novel, “Egos are like helium balloons: the bigger they are, the more fragile they are. »

“It’s very Shakespearian, the universe of Jean-Philippe, explains Christian Laurence. The characters experience great tragedies. They are all somewhat slaves to their ambitions, their impulses. And end up crushing everything in their path to achieve their ends. »

“When I write a novel or a play, I’m not concerned about originality,” adds the author. I just want it to be effective. And there are not a thousand and one ways to write a good story. It’s more dramatically interesting for a character with flaws, failings, serious shortcomings. The reader can comfort himself by telling himself that his life is not so terrible after all. »

Produced by KOTV, High demolition will consist of six episodes and will be broadcast next winter on Séries+.