Mathieu Dufour at Bell Centre (Mathieu Dufour Au Centre Bell) is a new comedy special performed by the Canadian comedian/influencer in Montreal, Canada, with a runtime of 63 minutes. The Netflix episode is in French with English subtitles and released on the platform on December 22, 2022, with special appearances from comedian Ève Côté and Tv personality Véronique Cloitier, and has been directed by Luc Sirois.
Netflix describes the comedy special as follows:
In a freewheeling stand-up performance for a packed Montreal arena, the comedian shares stories about paintball mishaps, McDonald’s misdeeds and more.
-Mathieu Dufour at Bell Centre Review Does Not Contain Spoilers-
It’s turned into a common feature nowadays, the more a particular category of entertaining content starts receiving additional releases, the lesser it becomes about entertainment. With comedy specials dropping on Netflix every other day, it’s becoming really hard to segregate the good from the bad, because its most likely that the stand-up will be average at best. Mathieu Dufour’s delivery at Bell Centre suffers through the same misfortune.
Right at beginning itself, he claims that his comedic trajectory isn’t sequential and that he rather speaks up whatever pops in his head. And though, it doesn’t come as a surprise, you hold still, in hopes of something good headed in your way due to his aura. His over the top reactions and storytelling skills are what make you believe in this idea of him coming through with his narration.
However, in between the costume changes (which, though, quite empowering, don’t fuel his material for comedy), other interventions and a supposed performance as the grand finale, the ‘special’ aspect from his comedy gets completely lost. The only limited timeframe that works out for him is when he brings out the stories about his “paintball mishaps and McDonald’s misdeeds”. And now you know why the official synopsis lists out just these two things in the show’s description. These anecdotes are the only good thing about the stand-up, only if he’d developed a series of such stories more, the rating for this review would’ve easily charted higher as well.
The problem arising here is, standing in front of a gigantic mass of audience, that too in a breathtaking arena like the Bell Centre weighs down on these artists with the compulsive need to outperform themselves in order to impress the audience. This overwhelming aspect pushes them to resorting to monumental tactics, all aloof from their funny side as comedians. Dufour’s episode is preyed upon by the same dilemma and it seems like he’s stuck in making the choice between – to be funny or to be eye-catching.
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Mathieu Dufour at Bell Centre: Final Thoughts
Netflix’s comedy specials have started following a new trend of concluding their run with the comedian singing a song, and though it’s more than evident that Mathieu Dufour isn’t a singer at all, he’s not trying to be one either. The song collaboration is replete with slapstick takes to up the humour content, however, none of them hit the viewer. The performance is accompanied by a huge team of background dancers joining them for the spectacle, and it all feels out of place considering this was meant to be a chance for the comedian to tickle our funny bone with his humorous accounts.
It’s understood that gathering a full packed arena’s attention isn’t child’s play, but the ultimate goal of such stand-up performances is completely left hanging in the air by the use of such of theatrics. Dufour relays one or two hilarious takes from his life and they could’ve adequately carried the show, but the mediating special appearance from Ève Côté cuts it all short.
Walking in with her own props in hand, her presence distracts us from all that Dufour had attempted to build up earlier. It puts the main man of the night in the background, which doesn’t work in favour for his overall stand-up performance either. Such comedy specials disguised as concerts divert from their main task of delivering qualitative content pertaining to their domain.
Mathieu Dufour at Bell Centre is now streaming on Netflix.
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