Dane Cook, Bassem Youssef and Bobby Slayton will be among the headliners from July 18 to 28 in and around the Quartier des spectacles.
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And just when we thought this was going to be a largely laugh-less summer in the city for anglos comes some surprisingly unexpected news that more than two dozen wits from here, across the country and the world will let loose — and under the Just for Laughs banner to boot.
Dane Cook, Bassem Youssef and Bobby Slayton — who had been previously announced as coming to Le 9e — will be among the anglo headliners in ComediHa!’s Salue Montréal taking place July 18 to 28 in and around the Quartier des spectacles.
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Such Canuck stalwarts as Hassan Phills, Marito Lopez, Moody McCarthy, Adrienne Fish and Clare Belford, among others, will be on hand. And not to be overlooked will be an impressive array of locals like, among others, Pantelis, Gino Durante, Rachelle Elie, Lawrence Corber and Wassim El-Mounzer.
What a difference a few months can make.
It was in March when it appeared the end was nigh for Just for Laughs with the announcement that this summer’s fest had been cancelled and that its ownership group was seeking protection from its creditors. Flash forward to early May when it was announced that Quebec City’s ComediHa! festival, in marking its 25th anniversary, was planning a special comedy salute to Montreal in July.
A month later and seemingly out of the blue, it was announced that ComediHa! had purchased the assets of the financially beleaguered Just for Laughs and had assumed control of the festival.
ComediHa! and now JFL president Sylvain Parent-Bédard was quick to unveil the franco lineup for the Montreal salute and pledged to soon disclose the anglo lineup under the Just for Laughs banner.
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Suffice to say that it sometimes took more than a year to land big-name talent to Just for Laughs in editions gone by, so there were few lofty expectations Parent-Bédard could pull off the feat in just over two weeks. OK, there are no Jerry Seinfelds or Kevin Harts in the anglo lineup just revealed Wednesday, but this selection is still pretty remarkable in light of the time factor.
It has been something of a whirlwind adventure for Parent-Bédard.
“We have been the owner of the Just for Laughs group only since June 7, so I’m really proud of our team to put this together so quickly,” Parent-Bédard says in a phone interview. “But it’s just the first step for the revival of Just for Laughs. We’ve put all our contacts and networks together to come up with this kind of English-language lineup, but there’s much more to come.”
In addition to paid indoor concerts at Place des Arts, Club Soda, Le 9e and the Comedy Nest, there are free outdoor shows throughout the festival, including veteran American standup Cook on July 27 at the Quartier des spectacles. The plan had been to have Sarah Silverman do a closing outdoor event on July 28, but a last-minute scheduling conflict put the kibosh on that. Parent-Bédard has pledged to announce another A-lister for that gig shortly.
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“It’s very important for us to have world-class comedians performing for free outdoors this year and in festivals to come,” he says. “It’s part of our mission.”
Besides comedy pit-bull Slayton on July 19 at Le 9e, Parent-Bédard is high on Bassem Youssef’s Middle Beast Tour coming to Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier on July 20. Youssef, a heart-surgeon-turned-host of the Arab world’s biggest political satire show, has been dubbed “the Egyptian Jon Stewart.” And from Calgary, by way of El Salvador, arrives one of this country’s up-and-comers, Marito Lopez.
Parent-Bédard concedes this rapid turnaround from running ComediHa! in Quebec City to staging a comedy salute to Montreal to taking over Just for Laughs has been numbing: “It’s been quite the shock to my system, but still a really great one.
“Now we own the greatest comedy group in the world. The first part of our plan was to be able to deliver a festival here this summer in a very short time frame. The second part is to put back together the touring section of Just for Laughs across Canada. And the third part is to shoot TV series this fall probably in Montreal and start programming next year’s festival.”
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“We’re making a small statement this year, but it will be really important for us to make a major statement next year,” he says.
Parent-Bédard is abundantly aware of the strides made by Netflix and its L.A. comedy festival in May in attracting the world’s greatest comics and providing them specials streaming on its network. But he is undaunted.
“Full credit to Netflix, but I believe Just for Laughs is a carrefour for the best comedians from all over the world, in English and French. We provide more than one platform. We have a different business model. So I’m not concerned, because the industry will see Montreal as standing out on this level.”
Parent-Bédard is in discussions with some former JFL employees, but “for the programming now, it’s all in the hands of Ariane Thibault,” an ex-JFL staffer who had been laid off last December and whom he credits for her quick work now.
“I have a lot of admiration for the work of what some former festival employees have built, but there was also something lacking in that recipe. So I don’t want to follow that same recipe. We want to use our kind of recipe. We want to follow the path with our own values. And we also want to listen to the people.
“We are not there yet, but we will get there.”
AT A GLANCE
The Just for Laughs Festival, the anglo component of ComediHa! Salue Montréal, runs July 18-28. Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. For schedule, lineup and ticket information, go to comedihasaluemontreal.com.
bbrownstein@postmedia.com
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