What will our holiday season look like now that we have the right to gather? If we trust PA Méthot’s Christmas party, Monday evening, at the Capitole Theater in Quebec, the post-pandemic festivities will be like those of yesteryear.
We’re going to eat turkey, go to Midnight Mass, jig and sing classics from the Quebec repertoire. Like in the good old days.
A fan of thematic evenings, PA Méthot has already organized 80s, 90s and disco parties over the years, inviting comedians and singers with the aim of making our nostalgic soul vibrate.
RENÉ BAILLARGEON/QMI AGENCY
The next logical step, and we’re surprised he hadn’t done it yet, was the Christmas party.
To see the thunderous atmosphere that reigned in the Capitol during this show that we will soon see on TV, which explains why the appointment had been set in the middle of November, the formula has potential.
Traditional
The Gaspé comedian and his guests did not, however, seek to reinvent the holiday season. As for the monologues, almost everyone stuck to traditional themes. Think of Le Temps d’un dinde, by Hi Ha Tremblay, but in an updated version. Not really original, but devilishly effective for a hilarious and exceptionally participative audience at six good weeks of New Year’s Eve.
PA Méthot kicked off the evening by remembering Christmas meals with the family, where you rub shoulders with people you don’t want to see the rest of the year. Dominique Paquet looked at the hell of shopping at the shopping center while Mélanie Ghanimé, tired of false nails and false eyelashes, pleaded for us to “slack the guidounage”.
Inspired by the show InfomanPierre-Luc Pomerleau made the public laugh out loud with his wacky advertisements of Christmas items spotted on Market Place, working French included.
RENÉ BAILLARGEON/QMI AGENCY
RENÉ BAILLARGEON/QMI AGENCY
Market Place is essential because, he says, for anyone wanting to reduce their spending on gifts, there’s one word to remember: second-hand. Yes, in a nutshell. As in “secondmin”, as seen in one of the advertisements presented by Pomerleau alongside “chinne sa” (chain saw), “quas quest” (cap) and myrouère (mirror).
Sometimes you wonder if the people who post on ad sites do it on purpose to write so badly and appear in a comedy number.
A jig battle was also on the program. The former participant of RevolutionJustin Jackson, made short work of Dominic Paquet.
In songs
Philippe Laprise and Jérémy Demay, the most hilarious of the group with his monologue on Quebecers who are going to spend Christmas in the south, and Richardson Zéphyr also came to make fun of the holiday season during this evening which had some of its best moments in music.
The good idea: ask musical artists to pair a traditional piece from Quebec with a pop cover from here or elsewhere. Ludovick Bourgeois continued December 23 and Why are you in the moon while Guylaine Tanguay yodled On the big coast before sharing Cotton Eye Joe with PA Methot.
Clearly already in the holiday spirit, spectators weren’t asked to dance and sing either The Cook with Yves Lambert and What Is Love with Damien Robitaille.
Mélissa Bédard then had only to pick this inflamed audience like a ripe fruit by offering it, as the last for the road, a unifying version of That’s lifeby the Algerian artist Khaled.