Richardson Zéphir and Eddy King’s JPR gala | A fraternal evening

A look at the show Big Brother Celebrities Friday evening at the gala evening of the Just for Laughs festival, which celebrates its 40^e anniversary. Former participants of the Richardson Zéphir and Eddy King adventure have joined forces to host this third evening. They surrounded themselves with well-known faces from Quebec reality TV in front of a dynamic and laughing crowd.

Delphine Belzile
The Press

The Maisonneuve Theater was packed on Friday for the first of two performances of the Just for Laughs festival gala evening, which was attended by The Press. After a long crowd animation, the spectators cheered the animators on stage, Richardson Zéphir and Eddy King.

For the very first time, a gala evening was hosted by two black Quebec artists. The animators proudly pointed this out. ” Once you go black, you never go back! exclaimed Eddy King, in front of the spectators.

The opening number generated a lot of excitement in the crowd when participants from Big Brother Celebrities burst onto the stage. The hosts warmly welcomed their former rivals Geneviève Borne, Jean-Thomas Jobin, François Lambert, Karl Walcott and Stéphanie Harvey. Special mentions to Tranna Wintour and Martin Vachon — participants of the adventure Big Brother and guests of the gala evening on Friday.

The seven guest comedians then continued with their performance. It was Neev, a comedian who can be seen in the first part of Louis-Josée Houde, who opened the ball on Friday evening. Acclaimed by the crowd, he immersed viewers in his family anecdotes during the pandemic. He got many giggles with his energy and theatrical presence.

Richardson Zéphir and Eddy King remained rather discreet during the evening, exchanging a few lines between the numbers of their guests.

Comedian and hockey fan Kevin Raphael took up the torch by sharing stories of his grandparents, originally from Haiti. The crowd laughed when the comedian told him a “Haitian secret” while staring at his grandfather sitting in the room. Said secret? For Haitians, the number of passengers required in a vehicle is a mere suggestion. You could hear the laughter of the Raphael family.

A crush on Mike Beaudoin, who embarked on a touching story about the death of his father and the birth of his son one day apart. The public was well served in emotions. “I want to cry, brother,” Eddy King said after his friend’s number.

Change of register: Tranna Wintour transported us to her confinement anecdotes. After breaking her record for orgasms in one day, she proudly became the mother of a Fury, an electronic plush.

The former candidate of Big Brother Celebrities proudly described herself as an Anglophone and transgender Quebec star. Her pronouns: Star and Diva, she told us.

As expected, Adib Alkhalidey’s performance received a standing ovation. The 34-year-old comedian unpretentiously delivered a number that was as comic as it was committed. With his “unemployment beard,” he raised sobering social issues about immigration and abortion.

Recently established in the countryside, he also confided to us his love-hate for it. “Everyone talks to everyone. There are even people who come to you! he exclaimed.

Martin Vachon, former candidate for Big Brother Celebrities, delivered a rather elementary number. He was, however, warmly applauded by the crowd on Friday night, earning peals of laughter with his teeth whitening anecdotes.

The evening ended strongly with Montreal comedian Daniel Tirado, straight from New York. He threw himself into the debate over gender neutrality and easily challenged the premise of the French language that “the masculine trumps the feminine”. His number drew his share of applause.

The hosts, Richardson Zéphir and Eddy King, concluded their evening by throwing shirts in the crowd, which rose to cheer all the guests of this first performance on Friday.

Note that comedian Rosalie Vaillancourt will close the Just for Laughs gala series on Saturday night at the Théâtre Maisonneuve.