The revolution has arrived. Okay, so I'm exaggerating a little. Call it a little television revolution.

Simon-Olivier Fecteau is the first to agree that there is something groundbreaking about his latest TV project and he's pretty sure the previously insular TV milieu in Quebec might finally be ready for this.

The show, Ces gars-là, stars a guy who is — gasp! — a non-francophone who makes no secret of the fact that his go-to language is English and this guy is someone you know — absurdly popular local standup comic Sugar Sammy.

The comedy series — which debuts Monday on V (the old TQS) — is based on Sammy's original idea, is written by Sammy and Fecteau, stars the two funnymen, and is directed by Fecteau. It's a buddy comedy with the two playing characters who are essentially caricatures of their real personalities.

It is the first time that I can think of that a major scripted French-language series made here features a non-francophone lead.

In a conversation this week, I told Fecteau that I've often written and talked on the radio about the lack of non-francos on French-language TV here and folks from the industry have always told me it's simply because they're not sure audiences are ready for that.

“For sure, with the success of (Sugar Sammy's bilingual comedy show) You're Gonna Rire, we can say that people are ready for that,” Fecteau said. “In the series, it's clear that Sammy's character is anglophone but the show is 95 per cent French-language in reality. Except that when Sam is at home with his parents, that's all in English. We wanted to keep the authenticity of his reality. We didn't want to dilute that. But the series is majority French-language. But it's true that maybe this is the first time we've seen this on Quebec TV.”

Fecteau underlines that politics is anything but the main focus in the show. There's one heavily political episode — the second one, in which Sam falls for a separatist women — but that's the only one that's so overtly political, Fecteau said.

“In the 10 episodes, there aren't a lot of episodes that talk about politics,” Fecteau said. “But there is a theme throughout of an anglophone who's friends with a francophone, an anglo-Indian who is friends with a white francophone, and just that itself, that's politics. But we didn't want the show to be heavy. We want it to be fun to watch.”

Fecteau made a name for himself as a member of the Quebec comedy trio Les Chick‘n Swell, and after leaving the group, he co-directed the inspired 2007 Quebec feature Bluff. He's also often worked as a director of TV commercials. But he's far and away best known ‘round these parts for En audition avec Simon, the side-splittingly hilarious Web series he started in 2010.

In the series, he plays a director auditioning local vedettes for film and TV projects and the show has featured a slew of Quebec stars in “audition,” including Xavier Dolan, Michel Côté, Jay Baruchel, Louis Morissette, Guy A. Lepage and Marc-André Grondin. That's where Fecteau and Sammy first worked together, creating a vignette where the two nearly come to blows after Sammy insults the director.

They became pals and Sammy kept suggesting projects they could do ensemble. When the standup comic showed Fecteau the blueprint for Ces gars-là, Fecteau was intrigued.

Soon, they decided the way to go was to have the characters reflect their own personalities. So Sam is the outgoing kind of macho ladies man, always quick with a quip, while Simon is more introverted and less sure of himself. Simon has just been dumped by his longtime girlfriend (played by Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and he isn't dealing too well with the breakup.

That relationship is, Fecteau admitted, inspired by his own experience going out with (and breaking up with) bestselling Montreal children's author India Desjardins, the woman behind the ultra-popular Aurélie Laflamme series of books. Desjardins helped with the writing of the series, particularly with the female characters.

Though the characters are pulled straight from Simon and Sammy's real lives, the one change is they're not in the entertainment business. It is never mentioned in the show what the two do to pay the bills.

But Sammy is most definitely Sammy, maybe even revved up a few notches. So we see him cruising women right, left and centre, even trying to show Simon how it's done. At times, Sammy is downright obnoxious and it's easy to imagine some will see some of these scenes as skirting dangerously close to sexism.

“But at the same time, we tried to have strong female characters too,” Fecteau said. “So maybe the character of Sammy is macho and perhaps even sexist. But the show isn't. The character played by Mélissa is very strong. Frankly all of the characters are at some point idiots, both men and women. So there's no discrimination there. The women aren't just accessories. Each character brings their own individual universe.”

En audition avec Simon was very much Fecteau's project. He came up with the idea. It was his thing. So this is a whole different gig, to work so closely with another creator, but he says he's been loving the partnership with Sammy.

“Writing is like being in a couple. You're not going to fit with just anyone. Sammy and I have a real complicity as writers. We complete each other. We each have our own strengths and together it makes for a good balance. And that's very rare.”

Ces gars-là premieres on V at 8 p.m. Monday.

Photograph by: Bertrand Calmeau 

Sugar Sammy, right, and Simon-Olivier Fecteau star in Ces Gars-là. Fecteau made a name for himself as a member of the Quebec comedy trio Les Chick‘n Swell. (Photo: V Télé)