Sugar Sammy

Sugar Sammy wanted a stronger presence in Quebec. His bilingual show You’re Gonna Rire became his first tour of Quebec in 2012.

TÉLÉRAMA: “Virtuose de la punchline, du rythme et de l’impro.”

C À VOUS: “Il a un sens de l’improvisation, c’est comme une conversation à 100 à l’heure avec le public.”

In July 2018, between his runs in France, Sugar Sammy set off for Malaysia, where he performed two nights of tapings for Comedy Central: Stand-Up Asia!. The tapings will air in 18 Asian countries on Aug. 14. Following the tapings, he took off for Singapore to perform his one-man show.

In July 2018, M6 network announced that Sugar Sammy would be one of the judges on season 13 of 'La France a un incroyable talent', the French equivalent of 'America's Got Talent', reaching 3.5 to 4 million weekly viewers.

In May 2018, 'You're Gonna Rire' and 'En Français S.V.P.' were released on DVD and digitally (on iTunes, GooglePlay and YouTube). Sugar Sammy celebrated the launch by performing five shows at the Olympia Theatre and giving out numbered, limited edition, DVD box sets to the 6500 fans who attended the event.

In July 2018, M6 network announced that Sugar Sammy will be one of the judges on season 13 of Freemantle Media's 'La France a un incroyable talent', the French equivalent of 'America's Got Talent', reaching 3.5 to 4 million weekly viewers.

In Spring/Summer 2017, Sugar Sammy toured the U.S.A. performing 40 shows in 7 American cities, including New York, San Jose, Seattle, Atlanta, Austin, Naples and Dallas.

In fall 2016, Sugar Sammy sets off for Paris and launches a new show geared specifically for a French audience. His show opened March 1, 2017 at l’Européen, in Paris. New to the French scene, Sugar Sammy quickly became one of the best selling shows in Paris. Sugar Sammy received the top critic score, the 3Ts from Télérama. More shows were added in Paris until the end of December 2017. In 2018, Sugar Sammy has added more dates in the City of Lights and is also be touring the rest of France, Belgium and Switzerland.

Sugar Sammy developed and tested his show "Les préliminaires" at Le Point Virgule in Paris, from September 2016 through December 2016. Sugar Sammy then moved his tried and tested show to a larger venue in Paris, l'Européen, and performed his new French show, titled "Sugar Sammy", four nights a week from March 1, 2017 until April 29, 2017. A pure "American stand-up" style show, with just a microphone and no censorship. Sugar Sammy expresses his point of view as a world-travelled Canadian, now living in Paris. Previously unknown in France, Sugar Sammy's show at l'Européen quickly became one of the top selling shows in Paris. After rave reviews from critics and by popular demand, Sugar Sammy announced 25 more shows in Paris, set to perform between November 9, 2017 and December 31, 2017 at l'Alhambra, moving from a 350-seat theatre, to a 600-seat theatre.

After selling over 25,000 tickets and presenting over 134 performances in France, Sugar Sammy was dubbed the “Best of 2017” by Paris Match magazine, who referred to his show as “grand art”. Thanks to the success of his first run, Sugar Sammy is set to continue his residency at the Alhambra Theatre until December 2018, he will also be touring the rest of France, Belgium and Switzerland.

On one of the most electric nights of the 2016 edition of Just For Laughs Festival, Sugar Sammy capped off his 420-show tour with one last performance of his hit show You're Gonna Rire in front of crowd of 115,000 in Montreal. This is how he marked his 8th presence at the festival. In July 2017, the hometown boy made his triumphant return to the Just For Laughs Festival to host 2 evenings of Sugar Sammy's International Gala. In hosting a Just For Laughs gala, Sugar Sammy joined legends and comedy stars such as Don Rickles, Steve Martin, Tina Fey, Jimmy Fallon, Bill Maher and Bill Burr. Fresh from hosting two critically acclaimed sold-out Galas at the 35th edition of the Montreal International Just For Laughs Comedy Festival, Sugar Sammy went on to host the 17th edition of the Just For Laughs Canadian Comedy Tour annual comedy tour in the autumn of 2017.

Since 2016, Sugar Sammy has been performing his ever-growing, one-man show in France, where GC magazine published a piece saying the funniest man in France is Quebecois. He has been touring the country as well as performing 3 nights a week at the Alhambra Theatre in Paris. He has added dates until December 2018. He has just been named one of the judges on "La France a un Incroyable Talent", the French equivalent of "America's Got Talent", reaching 3.5 - 4 million viewers a week.

In July 2016, after setting records in the Province of Quebec- he is the comedian who's sold the most tickets to a debut one-man show in Quebec history, Sugar Sammy announced that, as the curtain comes down on all the You're Gonna Rire madness, he'll be heading to France in an effort to conquer that particular market.

On July 28, 2016 Sugar Sammy headlined his last You're Gonna Rire show in front of a record-breaking crowd of 115 000 people at the Place des Festivals in Montreal, a free outdoor gig that was part of the Just For Laughs Festival. Before the Grande Finale, Sugar Sammy had performed his bilingual show and the all-French version En français svp! 420 times, and sold 371,509 tickets.

As the show wrapped its second season in April 2015, it was renewed for a third.

In 2015, Sugar Sammy won big again at Quebec's CREA Awards, with five CREA Awards. These include the Grand Prix Campagne Intégrée, one of the night's most prestigious awards. Other awards included Indoor Billboards (Sugargate), TV spot (TV campaign Offrez Sugar Sammy) and Radio Campaign (Sugar Sammy). The campaign was produced again in collaboration with Montreal advertising agency Sid Lee. The campaign to promote comedy shows You’re Gonna Rire and En français SVP!, featuring comedian Sugar Sammy, highlighted what he does best: making fun of life in Montreal.

During December 2014, he ran a billboard ad in the Montreal Metro stating that "For Christmas, I'd like a complaint from the Office de la langue française", in reference to the Quebec government organization that requires businesses to run ads in French. After a complaint was received, the English text was blacked out and replaced by "Pour Noel, j'ai eu une plainte de l'Office de la langue française" ("For Christmas, I got a complaint from the Office de la langue française"). This marketing campaign, designed by Sid Lee, garnered much attention from Quebec media and was the center of heated debates between different linguistic communities in the province.

In May 2014, Billboard magazine named Sugar Sammy the top-selling Canadian tour of the 12 months ending April 12, 2014. By the end of the year, he became Admission.com's overall Best Selling Show of 2014, with over 300,000 tickets sold.

In February 2014, Sugar Sammy and French-speaking comedian Simon-Olivier Fecteau launched the ten-episode series Ces gars-là on Quebec's French V network. A buddy comedy à la Wedding Crashers and Swingers, the show stars the two comedians, is directed by Fecteau, and is written by the two principals and India Desjardins. Inspired by the lives of the two writer-comedians, the series follows their searches for love, their relationships with their families and how they deal with the rules of their own friendship. Unusually, Sammy's English-speaking fans have followed him to a show on a French channel. The successful series was prolonged into a second season.

He is the first artist chosen by Comedy Central India to tour their country, visiting Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi in March 2013 with his English/Hindi/Punjabi comedy show.

In May 2013, Sugar Sammy became the first anglophone comedian to win at Quebec's prestigious Olivier comedy awards. He won the Olivier for Best Show (voted by the industry, for En français svp!) and the Olivier for Comedian of the Year (voted by the public). In 2014, he once again won the Olivier for Comedian of the Year at the 16th annual gala, and Apple chose him to perform in their TV ads in French Canada. In May 2015, he was nominated again, for a third year in a row, for the Olivier for Comedian of the Year.

After setting attendance records around the world for sold-out shows in four languages- English, French, Punjabi and Hindi, Sugar Sammy brings the house down across Canada during February–March 2009 with his show Live in Concert. He drew on everything from arranged marriages in his own Indian ancestry to his view on deviant sex, drugs and modern-day relationships. The tour ended in Montreal in March 2009. He then released the DVD Sugar Sammy Live in Concert: Direct from Montreal, which was the number-one best-selling comedy DVD on Amazon.ca for five straight weeks.

Sugar Sammy continued to perform both shows in Montreal, and the French show throughout the province of Quebec. His ranked as the 30th largest-grossing tour in North America according to Pollstar magazine in May 2013. Two years later, the combined shows had sold over 230,000 tickets, with over 100 sold-out shows performed at the Olympia theatre in Montreal alone.

In 2012, the bilingual show was also transformed into a fully French-language show entitled En Français S.V.P. ("In French, Please").

The 2012 Grand Prix Créa, which recognizes Quebec's best advertisement of the year, has been awarded to the Sid Lee agency for Vidéotron's English-language Prank Calls campaign featuring Sugar Sammy. Sugar Sammy also won the best actor award for his performance. The campaign aimed at showing its customer-service employees' patience and efficiency, while also mentioning the company's various services. In each spot, Sammy called Videotron's customer service with a bizarre problem designed to test the employees' abilities while highlighting a particular aspect of Vidéotron's services. "The writing and direction are perfect," the jury explained. "Because Sugar Sammy delivers the goods so masterfully, viewers understand everything and laugh a lot." According to Claude Foisy, Vice President, Brand Management, of Videotron. "These are actual calls answered by real employees, who demonstrate their dedication to their mission of providing their customers with the best possible experience".

In an unprecedented experiment, Sugar Sammy's You're Gonna Rire is the first large-scale Anglo-Franco comedy show in the country. In 2011, he created a show in a language called Franglais, an ode to the common Montreal experience of switching between English and French throughout the day. It was described as "50.5 per cent English, 49.5 per cent French" as a reference to the 1995 referendum results. Initially conceived as a single night at the 1,300-seat Olympia theater, tickets sold so fast that it extended to 45 performances, with a total of 53,000 tickets sold by April 2013.

In the summer of 2009, The Gersh Agency signed Sugar Sammy following a strong showing at the Just For Laughs Festival.

After traveling across the globe to perform in many comedy festivals and clubs, Sugar Sammy hit the road again in 2007 to present around the world his first one-man show "Down with the Brown". He tackled everything from life in Quebec to his take on sex and race from the perspective of an Indo-Canadian. His debut comedy album followed, Down With the Brown. It was released on January 15, 2008 and coincided with a Canadian tour.

In 2007 Sugar Sammy appeared in Quebec's Le Show Raisonnable, and in 2009 performed in the French edition of the Just for Laughs Festival. His point of view concerning Quebec politics and culture from the perspective of a minority earned him a standing ovation and "The Revelation of the Year" award. In 2010 he made headlines again by presenting an award alongside Quebec political leader Pauline Marois. He teased her incessantly about sovereignty and the language debate.

On August 21, 2006, Khullar opened for Dave Chappelle at Toronto's Massey Hall. In 2006, he taped his Comedy Now! special, which aired in Canada on the Comedy Network, CTV and A. It also aired on Comedy Central in the United States.

Khullar has performed on TV several times since 2004. He appeared at the Just For Laughs Festival seven years in a row and was the first comedian ever to perform in the English, French, and Hindi Toronto editions of the Festival. He has also appeared at the Sydney Comedy Festival, the Cape Town Comedy Festival, and was invited to the inaugural Johannesburg Comedy Festival in 2009.

Samir Khullar was born February 29, 1976 and raised in the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood of Montreal, Quebec; he worked in his parents' convenience store. At the age of eight he saw Eddie Murphy's 1983 comedy special Delirious, and credits the experience as being a defining moment in his life. From then on, he knew what he wanted to do. Khullar also names Martin Lawrence, Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle as comedic influences.