Just in case anyone thinks this year's Winnipeg Comedy Festival doesn't have an international flavour, consider this:

We've got the fast-rising Indo-Canadian comic, on the phone from London during an extended gig in England, describing his recent month-long booking in Durban, South Africa, and discussing his game plan for performances in the Winnipeg fest's francophone gala and first-ever bilingual comedy show.

Ladies and gentlemen... Sugar Sammy.

"I'm just happy working," the Quebec-born comic says of his recent globetrotting schedule, "being able to play to new audiences and constantly growing my market."

After several exceedingly well-received headlining stands at Rumor's Comedy Club -- including one during last year's festival -- Sammy will be taking his act to one of the fest's big-show stages. He'll also be taking part in one of this weekend's taped-for-radio editions of The Debaters, the popular returning feature that sees host Shaun Majumder playing referee as duelling standups go head to head on a number of pop-culture and current-events topics.

Sammy says he's looking forward to performing in both languages -- something he does often in his hometown of Montreal -- but admits that preparing material for tonight's Drôlement Votres show and Saturday night's Bilingual Show (both at the Centre culturel franco-manitobain) requires a little more effort.

"Humour is very language based, so French humour is completely different," he says. "You have to time it differently; you have to change your setups a bit; sometimes you have to change your punches. Sometimes, words don't translate properly, so you have to change it around that way, too."

Sammy is quick to add that tuning up his act in either of this country's official languages is an easier task than taking Canadian-concocted comedy to different countries around the world.

"You have to adjust, because humour is so different everywhere," he explains. "Humour is subjective anyway, from individual to individual, but when you go from region to region -- even within Canada -- people laugh at different things.

"The more I visit a city or a country, the better I get to know it. It's kind of like that American Express commercial with Jerry Seinfeld in England -- he goes onstage and does a show, and nobody gets him; then he spends five days doing research, picking up the local lingo and figuring out what's going on, and he goes back on and kills. That's what you have to do; in Durban, I wrote 15 or 20 minutes just about that city, the people of South Africa and their political situation. You have to do your research.

"No one comes to a show saying, 'Let's give this guy a break because he's from somewhere else.' They're not going to meet you halfway."

It's Sugar Sammy's first official booking at the Winnipeg Comedy Festival, but he's confident this trip will feel a lot like coming home.

"Winnipeg, for some reason, is one of my favourite cities to play in," he says. "I just love it there. It's hard to put my finger on why -- I think Winnipeg is that link between Eastern Canada and Western Canada, and it's a mix of the vibes from both sides of the country. It seems like a very balanced city, and I love the people there."

Copyright F.P. Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership Jun 21, 2009.