Comedians Anas Hassouna and Oussama Fares will give their biggest show of their career on Thursday evening at the Olympia in Montreal. Despite their growing popularity, the pair often go under the radar of journalists. Press therefore went to the heated terrace of the Abreuvoir to break the habit.
Both aged 27, Anas Hassouna and Oussama Fares have known each other since the start of high school. Used to stages, large and small, they now hold two comedy evenings at l’Abreuvoir. The bar, the first love of the two comedians, was a training playground for them.
Anas Hassouna has hosted the Wednesday evening there, one of the most coveted in town, for nearly five years. That of Thursday evening, Fragile rebus, held by the two comedians, presents a crowd of emerging comedians from the immediate circle of Anas and Osama.
A career saved by the pandemic
Even though the shows stopped during lockdown, COVID-19 still gave their careers a boost. “We knew we had to focus on the web, but we really weren’t [là-dessus] », Says Anas.
PHOTO SARAH MONGEAU-BIRKETT, THE PRESS
Anas Hassouna
Without the pandemic, we might still be just bar comedians. Very funny, certainly, but it was going nowhere, this story.
Anas Hassouna
In March 2020, they therefore launched the web series Midnight with Roman Frayssinet, French humorist who now has his column on the show Click on Canal +. Visiting Montreal last year, he was stranded here due to health restrictions. That’s when the three accomplices came up with the concept.
Every evening, they posted a video clip where they were chatting while lying in bed. On Instagram, Anas Hassouna and Oussama Fares came out with 20,000 more subscribers each. Their capsules, with subtitles, reached Quebecers as well as the French.
After 39 capsules, Roman Frayssinet returned to France. Anas Hassouna and Oussama Fares have remained active on the web.
The duo notably released We are here, talk show stuffed with humor broadcast between June and August 2021. They received in particular Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, Safia Nolin and High Klassified.
During the pandemic, they gained a very Montreal audience. “Before, you couldn’t have [nous] ask for an Olympia to be filled, ”Anas said to herself of the show they are about to give in the room which can hold 1,200 people seated on Sainte-Catherine Street East.
Bring people together beyond humor
The humor of Anas Hassouna and Osama Fares is meant to unite. It is important for them to create a close bond with people.
PHOTO SARAH MONGEAU-BIRKETT, THE PRESS
Osama Fares
I want the world to take me by the shoulder and be told [des choses]. This is what inspires me. I’m chilling with you and I’m having the same problems.
Osama Fares
Their Moroccan friends who grew up in Montreal-North are there to defend the realities of hood, they recall in reference to their neighborhood of origin. ” [Par exemple], I would like to do sketches on Haitian and North African auxiliary nurses, ”Oussama confides.
the hood is an integral part of their approach. If more and more comedians come from the same area, Anas Hassouna and Oussama Fares seem to stand out with an unusual force of persuasion. “These guys aren’t selfish. They taught me everything [comme] socialize without being aggressive, I come from hood », Launches the emerging comedian Erickson Alisme, present on the terrace to drink a shot with the two comedians he considers his mentors.
22-year-old Erickson Alisme is part of the same independent production team as Anas Hassouna and Oussama Fares, Fishnet. It is she who is behind Midnight and We are here. They are several to “ride together”, they say.
In passing, they add that they are making a human art. “We have to live something together, insists Osama. All the time. When I do a show, it’s 15 minutes of good jokes, but I laugh with people for an hour afterwards. ”
This is what they will do (again) this Thursday evening at the Olympia after the show That one.