It wasn't that long ago. Maybe a decade back. A young up-and-coming comic, already toiling in the trade for a decade, was booking small shows in small rooms featuring other up-and-coming comics. He would also throw himself into the mix on occasion. Not necessarily to pay the rent – he was living with his parents – but to avail himself of some of the amenities of life: car, phone, clothing, beer.

Comedy can be an especially tough game in this town, particularly when one is not of vieille souche stock. No matter, the aspiring comic was driven. He also figured it would be best to adapt to surroundings if he wished to continue living and working here.

Times have changed. The aforementioned comic, Sugar Sammy, is now a cottage industry unto himself. Soon to become a mega-corp at this rate. The Sugar Sammy train keeps thundering along.

What's been happening of late? Let's see: Sugar Sammy is now the voice of Apple Canada. He can be caught shilling the iPhone 6 on the tube in this province – in French, along with his real-life best buddy, comic/actor/director Simon Olivier Fecteau. The two are the co-stars and co-creators of the hit franco buddy-comedy TV series Ces gars-là.

Pretty heady stuff, all the more so since the anglo Apple voices for this continent are Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake.

And, oh yeah, Ces gars-là was renewed for a second season of 10 episodes on the V network. Shooting wrapped in September and Season 2 will begin airing in February.

“The big surprise for me about the show was the reaction from the anglos and the ethnics. Except for watching hockey on RDS, this was the first time many of those people had ever tuned in to a French TV series,” says the ever-smiling Sugar Sammy, holding court at his favourite eatery/lounge, the Tavern on the Square. “I've been stopped on Monkland a bunch of times by anglos/ethnics telling me they were huge fans of the TV show and asking me when the second season was coming back.”

Season 2 will have Sugar Sammy and Fecteau pushing buttons even more on all fronts. “And, finally, I'll be trying to move out of my parents' house.”

At 38 – actually, he's really just nine and a half years old, since he's a leap-year baby, born Feb. 29 – it's about time, and he reports that he has in fact left the nest at last for an abode in town. Funds are certainly no longer an issue at this point. He does, after all, have his hugely popular bilingual and franco stage shows to fall back on. The revues have played to sold-out audiences for the last two and a half years at Montreal's Théâtre L'Olympia and throughout the province.

And there's much more to come. So fret not if you couldn't score tickets for either Sugar Sammy's bilingue You're Gonna Rire or En Français SVP in the lingo of Molière. Demand has been such that 40,000 new tickets are about to go on sale, which will have him performing through to June. Those who sign up on his website get first dibs as of Nov. 10. Otherwise, tickets for the general public will be available Nov. 15.

It seems demand is especially strong from folks who have already caught the spectacle – more than once at that.

“Hard to believe, but I've heard from fans who've seen the shows 10 and 12 and even 20 times, and they want more. Plus, they're bringing new groups to the shows. In my wildest dreams, I couldn't have anticipated that. What's that all about?”

Simple. Sugar Sammy has struck the sort of chord with audiences that other entertainers in the province would kill for.

But what sets Sugar Sammy apart from most other gifted wits around is that he is also one shrewd entrepreneur. With the aid of longtime manager Martin Langlois, he essentially four-walls his shows in the city. That is, he rents the theatre and covers the promotional costs, and then picks up the lion's share of the grosses. There are few middle men in this operation. He is his own producer.

“Sometimes you just have to take control,” he says. “It's also a case of picking the right producers, like Evenko for the touring shows in the province. The point is: a performer really has to pay attention to the off-stage stuff to get ahead.”

Sugar Sammy is a quick study.

Perhaps not what our government legislators had envisioned when it was passed in 1977, but Sugar Sammy has essentially become a poster boy for Bill 101. A child of immigrants from India, he attended French primary and secondary school and his mastery of the language of this province's majority is not questioned. To the point that he is equally comfortable performing in French as in English, not to mention in Hindi and Punjabi, too.

But like so many other Montrealers, he sees the world through a multi-cultural lens. His outspoken views on the latter, as espoused in his stage shows, may have riled some in more nationalist circles, but they have amused far more people. Funny can still pretty much trump divisive politics in this province. And, funnily enough, it's divisive politics fuelling Sugar Sammy's act.

“In terms of the city getting behind me, I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this. I think it's because the shows really represent what Montreal is all about. Sure, it has ruffled some feathers, but it has also broken a lot of barriers. Needless to say, I'm overwhelmed. I'm getting as much of a kick doing the shows now as I did at the beginning.”

And it's not as if he is performing the same shows as he did two and a half years ago. Since the shows are rooted in local cultural and political matters, he must constantly alter his material. He estimates that the current shows have 50 per cent different content from the originals.

“Circumstances change almost every day here. So the shows are constantly evolving. I'm adding and cutting material all the time. Don't forget that we almost lost our civil rights here not too long ago,” he says in reference to the proposed charter of values. “But then came the election, and we got them back. For now.

“People ask me what I'm going to do now that civil unrest seems to have been quelled. I tell them to wait, that it's only Friday.” Big grin. “Something will come up. It's Quebec. The material writes itself every day.”

In fact, he is saving some of that material for a sequel to both the You're Gonna Rire and En Français SVP shows. “There is just so much out there: PKP, endless construction on the roads. I've been truly blessed living here.”

For the second consecutive year, he has won the award as most popular comic in Quebec at Le Gala Les Olivier – a first for a non-francophone comedian.

His faithful following in Montreal is understandable, but even he is amazed at the reception he gets in the more far-flung reaches of the province.

“I'm visiting places I don't think I would have ever seen otherwise, had it not been for this tour. I never thought I'd go to Shawinigan. But the audience is great there – even when I joke that Shawinigan is where dreams go to die.” Pause. “The people are so old there that even their hockey team is called Les Cataractes. What's their football team called? Les Incontinents?”

He's off to the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean region next, on a prospecting mission for more comedy gold. Also in the works is a Canadian tour and some film projects.

And soon he could be bringing his act to France. He's been in contact with French producers, who flew to Montreal recently to catch his shows here.

“That will be a challenge since the sensibilities in France are much different than here,” he explains. “So I'll just put them at ease right away by saying: ‘I'm Sugar Sammy. This is what Quebec looks like now. I just want to let you know that the Indians have won.'

“Basically, I want to hold up a mirror to society there like I do here.”

That mirror seems to be his winning ticket.

“Honestly, I'm just happy to be working. It was really tough at the beginning. I created shows so I would have a place to perform. I was making next to nothing,” a more sombre Sugar Sammy reflects.

“When you remember those hardships, you can appreciate where you're at now. There are no givens in this world. It can all disappear one day. Nothing is to be taken for granted.”

Information:

Sugar Sammy's You're Gonna Rire continues at Théâtre L'Olympia, 1004 Ste-Catherine St. E. En Français SVP tours the province, including Montreal. There will be an advance sale Nov. 10 for the new block of 40,000 tickets for both shows. For ticket and schedule information, go to sugarsammy.com.