Excepting Mr. Bean or a banana peel on the sidewalk, comedy doesn't cross language barriers very easily, or often. Which is why few of us in the Rest of Canada can grok the goings-on of Les Bougon. If only someone outside of Quebec would put it on the air with subtitles.

Ah well, our loss. Or so I'm told by people who kept up with French past the 10th grade.

And yet Just For Laughs looks to be testing these limits in its Toronto spin-off this week, which — along with the gala appearances by John Cleese, Sarah Silverman and company — includes a stand-up show that mashes together English and Hindi.

Topping the Hinglish bill (no real surprise here) is Montreal polyglot Sugar Sammy, a recurring character on the Just For Laughs circuit who is known for playing well with crowds in French, English, Hindi and Punjabi.

The bilingual show, on Sunday at the Glenn Gould Studio, is an exercise in bringing everyday multilingualism to light, he says.

"Most people I know speak a minimum of two languages. Not only do they live it in their day-to-day lives but in consuming pop culture," says Sammy, who shares the bill with Mumbai's Sunil Pal, Last Comic Standing also-ran Papa CJ and Texan/Malayali Paul Varghese.

"In a typical day, I'll watch a movie in Hindi, the news in French and listen to an album in English.... I flow from English to French to Punjabi without even thinking about it," he adds, noting that the latter is "probably the funniest" language "because of the sounds and faces you have to make when you speak it. If you don't believe me... watch two Punjabi guys speaking. You won't need cable to entertain yourself anymore."

One formerly local comic who is conspicuously absent from the Hinglish show, Shaun Majumder, is instead headlining JFL's Ethnic Comedy Show at the Winter Garden Theatre, appearing with Steve Byrne (representing both Koreans and the Irish), Rachel Feinstein (the Jews) and local Frank Spadone (Corso Italia).

Also from close to home, Nikki Payne brings her one-woman show My Big Fat Donated Kidney back to Comedy Bar, while Jon Dore and his TV writers do two nights of stand up at the Rivoli.

The Toronto version of JFL also marks the return of a different sort of ethnic act. Although Marc Hickox has continued to appear around town since his move to LA, he and his über-German alter-ego Heino are set to make a splashier return with a "muzikal komödie kabaret" on Friday and Saturday, also at Comedy Bar,

The Heino character is, of course, an impersonation of the very real and very creepy German folk singer of the same name. (Imagine Col. Klink in a blond wig.) Hickox has been getting Volkswagen-like mileage out of the bit for many years, and apparently it's clicked with a crowd in LA.

"I found an amazing German bar down here and Heino immediately occupied the piano lounge," he says. He puts on monthly singalongs "to the delight of drunken hipsters and derision of the German barmaids."

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