Stand-up comedians from Canada

Canada supports two stand-up industries at once, one working in English and one in French, and each of them has built its own training, its own prizes and its own rooms. Quebec made the formal half. The École nationale de l'humour opened in Montreal in 1988, and in 1992 its comedy writing and performance program was recognised by the province's Ministry of Education, so a francophone comic can step on stage with a diploma behind the act. The Association des professionnels de l'industrie de l'humour runs the Gala Les Olivier, created in 1999 and named for Olivier Guimond, which means the French-language scene hands out its own verdicts instead of waiting for one from outside. François Pérusse and Stéphane Fallu belong to that world.

The English-language side grew out of clubs rather than classrooms. Yuk Yuk's opened in Toronto in 1976 and turned into a national chain with rooms in five provinces, which gave a touring comic a route across the country rather than one city to break into. Second City opened its Toronto theatre in 1972, and the troupe there produced SCTV, on air from 1976 to 1984, which pushed sketch and character work to the centre of English Canadian comedy. Russell Peters, on stage since 1989, took the other road and built his following on crowd work, dialects and material about growing up between cultures.

Montreal sits on the seam between the two. Just for Laughs began there in 1982 as a two-day French event and added English programming in 1985, so a single city serves both audiences in the same weeks without blending them.

The performers here come from Vancouver, Toronto and Quebec City, and also from Moose Jaw, Tisdale, Ashern and Terrace, with birth years spanning 1901 to 2000. They work in English, French, Hindi and Punjabi. Lilly Singh performs sketch and character comedy with cultural satire inside it, Jon Lajoie writes novelty songs and satirical rap in both official languages, and the wider range takes in deadpan, improv, one-liners, storytelling and bilingual comedy.