(Montreal) Unlike last year, women were not excluded from the Olivier winners on Sunday evening. Mariana Mazza won nothing less than the Olivier of the year. The comedian was the only one to slow down the irresistible push of Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais, who won three prizes.
Updated at 0:04
Winner of the ultimate reward of the evening, Mariana Mazza was not there on Sunday evening to savor her victory. No reason was given at the ceremony for his absence. The host François Bellefeuille simply appeared on stage to indicate that the lucky winner “could not be there”. A fishtail finale for the annual meeting of comedians.
In an emotional video posted on Facebook late in the evening, Mariana Mazza finally indicated, in tears, that after having given shows in Quebec on Saturday, and two days before giving some in Laval then in Montreal, she wanted to s ‘save. Visibly stunned, she apologized for staying home. ” What’s going on ? she exclaimed, wiping away her tears.
She added that she watched the ceremony and after her victory her mother called her screaming. “All of this was not planned,” she said.
Mariana Mazza remains the only woman to have won this prestigious statuette, five years after having removed it for the first time. But whereas in 2017, this prize came from popular vote, this year it was the result of the vote of a specialized jury (65%) combined with the Academy of the Association of Professionals of the Humor Industry ( 35%).
Mariana Mazza is one of only three women to have obtained a trophy during the event broadcast live from studio 42 of the former Radio-Canada tower. The other two are Marylène Gendron, winner of the Humorous Podcast of the Year for Everyone hates each otherwhich she drives with Sam Cyr, and Sonia Cordeau, who came to pick up the trophy for The Appendices: Back after the breakvoted Comedy web series of the year.
François Bellefeuille had mentioned the male-female imbalance that characterizes his industry on stage at the opening of the show.
I think that next year, a woman should host the Oliviers… because it doesn’t pay enough for a man!
Francois Bellefeuille
The master of ceremonies added a layer a few minutes later by emphasizing the record presence of three drag queens among the finalists: “It’s the middle of humor, it’s been years that women want to take more space , and then we’re like, “Yeah, provided they have a penis.” »
Three awards for Roy-Desmarais
Big favorite with four citations, Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais did not prove the odds wrong. The 27-year-old comedian has distinguished himself three times, notably winning the trophy for Comedy Number of the Year for There is nobody, a delirious monologue presented at the 2020 Just for Laughs festival during which he interacted with an empty room. In front of a bare floor due to the strict sanitary measures followed by Radio-Canada, the winner said that his number had almost never seen the light of day, because Just for Laughs did not want to know anything about such a singular proposal. In the same breath, he decried the lack of vision of certain bonzes of the industry, who often underestimate the public.
Roy-Desmarais was also crowned Discovery of the Year ahead of Pascal Cameron, Simon Delisle, Richardson Zéphyr and Matthieu Pepper. The latter did not leave empty-handed sinceBetween two sheetsthe series he created and in which he plays, won the trophy for Comedy TV Show of the Year.
Returning to Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais, he also won the Olivier for humorous web sketch of the year, the only category for which the general public was invited to vote. The triumph of the verbomotor surprised no one since he was a finalist with Mom writesa capsule of less than a minute which has accumulated more than 1,700,000 views on YouTube, more than all the other finalists combined: Guy Nantel’s vox-pop at the anti-vaccine and anti-vaccination passport demonstration, Amateur 3 by Jo Cormier, The dispute by Alexandre Forest and Christmas in Carole-finely by Silvi Tourigny.
The other winners
Elsewhere, The beautiful discomforts 2.0 was crowned Comedy Fiction Series of the Year ahead of Discussions with my parents, The Blue House, Guys and King Street.
Always so entertaining in his thanks, Martin Matte recounted the unglamorous underside of the Gemini awards before showing, accessory included, how he had Frenched Julie Le Breton through a window during filming.
The Humorous Scripted Podcast of the Year award went to Charles Beauchesne for The worst moments in history.
For the second time, the Olivier for humorous radio sketch of the year was awarded to Jean-Sébastien Girard for Name of a Blowjob – All About Cuma humorous chronicle delivered to The evening is still young in October 2020, between two bursts of laughter from Magalie Lépine-Blondeau, who participated in the show as a guest.
This triumph comes at the right time for Jean-Sébastien Girard, who will begin in September the break-in of his first solo show.
An email ?
Due to a certain pandemic that has not been kind to the cultural environment, this 23and edition of the Olivier was held in the absence of several usually flagship categories, such as Show of the Year, author, best seller, etc. As François Bellefeuille indicated at the start of the evening: “This gala could have been an email! »
During certain more or less convincing or long numbers (Who is hiding behind the door? – Celebrities), the email alternative seemed attractive to us, but in the end, we would have missed some good segments, such as Waiting for the winner, in which François Bellefeuille tried to destabilize certain comedians (Rosalie Vaillancourt, Katherine Levac, Arnaud Soly, Christine Morency, François Morency…) with all kinds of surprise questions. The best line belongs to Rita Baga, whom the host asked about Big Brother Celebrities, reality show in which the drag queen participated with Jean-Thomas Jobin. “Tell me something no one knows about Jean-Thomas Jobin. Baga’s response: “He’s funny.” »
The (false) Bellefeuille convenience store series project with Sophie Nélisse, Fabien Cloutier, Karine Gonthier-Hyndman also seems promising.
As for the presentations, honorable mentions to the energy of Cathy Gauthier, the chemistry of the couple Anne-Élisabeth Bossé-Guillaume Pineault, as well as to Ariel “the queen of lip-sync” Charest.