Pre-Bye bye programming for December 31 | Live at the top of the podium

The Press dissected the pre-alignmentBye from Radio-Canada to highlight the good (and not so good) shots of New Year’s Eve

The emotions ofLive

We can always count on France Beaudoin to transform our living room into a festive happening… even when we catch up on her show the day after the day before, on a Monday morning.

Once again, the teamLive from New Year’s Day has outdone itself by concocting a harmonious marriage between catchy songs, moments of emotion and an annual retrospective. The impromptu kidnappings (without brushing teeth, shaving or showering… except for Gino Chouinard) were particularly successful, as were the nods to the news of the last 12 months. Among them, we remember Creton (Josée Deschênes) dressed all in Barbie pink, The REM on I love you by Lara Fabian, Beautiful vegetables to talk about inflation at the grocery store, and Mélissa Bédard who shouts about Oxygen by Diane Dufresne, in reference to summer forest fires.

The chemistry seemed to be in full swing within the quintet of “lively” personalities, made up of Mélanie Maynard, Benoît McGinnis, Gino Chouinard, Élise Guilbault and Ève Côté. The latter perfectly summed up our thoughts by uttering a “Phew!” » well felt at the heart of the most tearful segment of the show: the salute to the missing, a magnificently stripped-down number (compared to the medleys pétaradants) which brought together Aliocha Schneider, Richard Séguin, Kim Thúy, Ingrid St-Pierre and 84 residents of Lac-Mégantic in front of constellations of stars which outlined the silhouettes of Karl Tremblay, Michel Côté, Denise Bombardier, Louisette Dussault, Hubert Reeves and Guy Latraverse.

The more the years pass, the greater the expectations, and the more Live from the universe exceeds them.

Thanks to the actors

Of the four major specials on December 31, See you next year has never been our favorite. We appreciate the performances of the actors/impersonators, who elevate the material we give them, but the good-natured humor of the normally exclusively radio show, conceived, written and piloted by Philippe Laguë, usually leaves us unmoved.

The 2023 edition continued the tradition. We saw most of the gags coming from afar, and after the irresistible whirlwind of emotionsLive from New Year’s Day, the simplicity of the meeting recorded at the Beanfield Theater in Montreal dampened our surge of enthusiasm, like a shower not necessarily cold, but certainly lukewarm. Fortunately, thanks to the talent of interpretation of Michèle Deslauriers (terrific as Ginette Reno), Benoit Paquette (convincing Bernard Drainville), Dominic Paquet (Normand Lester), Pierre Verville (François Legault, Patrice Roy) and Véronique Claveau (Pénélope McQuade, Sonia Benezra), we didn’t look at our watch too often during the hour. And the obvious enthusiasm with which they perform each of the sketches shines through the screen. (Note to those interested: the show is rebroadcast Tuesday at 9 p.m. on ICI Télé.)

Never too much by Véronique Claveau

Speaking of Véronique Claveau, the singer had a big night, both in front of and behind the lens. According to what we learned during the behind-the-scenes showLive from New Year’s Day (which will be presented again Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. on ICI Télé), the ex-star-academician helped France Beaudoin surprise Véronic DiCaire by replacing Gowan during rehearsals, to then let the Canadian singer go on stage during the recording, to the great astonishment of the Franco-Ontarian imitator, who accompanied him on tour in 1996.

Besides his (too short) rereading of pagan prayer by Celine Dion in Live from New Year’s DayVéronique Claveau also distinguished herself by caricaturing the Queen of Vegas in See you next year. His Céline-who-adopts-a-serious-tone-to-discuss-serious-things was stunning. “The last few months have allowed me to realize one thing. This thing is a phrase which, when said, means something, which is also a phrase…” This line promises to become a classic.

A Infoman less biting

Still many, many good finds in Infoman, but for some reason, we didn’t laugh as much as we would have liked while watching the humorous revue hosted by Jean-René Dufort. Could the depressing news of 2023 have something to do with it? Maybe. But we would tend to blame the overly complacent interviews with the political elite. Without providing any particularly memorable moments, they took up half of the airtime. Justin Trudeau, François Legault, Pierre Poilievre, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, Bernard Drainville, Steven Guilbeault, Yves-François Blanchet, Bruno Marchand… It’s too much.

We would have preferred more innovative and surprising segments, such as Let’s talk baboune with Marc Labrèche and Jean-René Dufort disguised as Pierre Fitzgibbon in front of the real “superminister”, reading Barbada to the children of right-wing parents (with titles like The Princess and Little Poilievre And Bambi in Longueuil), Les triplettes de Drainville (its almost a cappella cover of Autumn song des Cowboys Fringants is still as embarrassing), In the head of François Legault (with Antoine Vézina) and, above all, The re-resurrection of the third link, which recounted the interminable saga of the Quebec-Lévis road project by doctoring the images of Jesus of Nazareth. Should have thought about it!