Maxime Gervais

Maxime Gervais studied teaching at the Université de Sherbrooke, but his comedy took shape inside a duo. In 2002 he teamed up with Dominic Massicotte, and from 2005 the pair worked as Les Pic-Bois. They reached the final of En route vers mon premier gala in 2008 and took the audience prize at Zoofest in 2017 with an improv-league show of their own. Along the way they joined the absurdist radio programme Des si et des rais on CHOQ.FM and fronted the web series La télé communautaire des Pic-Bois for Juste pour rire; Julien Bernatchez officially became a third member in 2019, and the group split in 2022.

His solo breakthrough came through Claude Crest, a character he invented during the first Quebec lockdown, who went on to carry the docufiction film Claude Crest: la balloune. On stage he launched the one-man show Big Max at Club Soda in 2024 and followed it with C'était magnifique, presented at Club Soda and the Impérial Bell in 2026.

Music runs as a second track. Early recordings came out under the name Maxos le Gervoïde, and the album Une nouvelle forme de joie won the punk album or EP prize at the Gala Alternatif de la Musique Indépendante du Québec in 2021. He has also taken film roles in Aline in 2020 and Maria in 2021.