Brownstein: Local comics set for big break at Just for Laughs Festival

Montreal Gazette

12-07-2025

By
Throughout the years, one of the Just for Laughs Festival's most popular series had been the Montreal Shows, spotlighting the best and brightest of this city's anglo wits. For reasons unknown and baffling, the series disappeared for a spell and, with its absence, so did the dreams of many an aspiring local.
The good news for these standups as well as their fans is that the 43rd JFL, running July 16-27, will feature the series again with two shows on July 18 at Théâtre Ste-Catherine.
Two of the city's sharpest wits, Raajiee Chelliah and Wassim El-Mounzer, will get an opportunity to showcase their talents that night. And another can't miss homegrown comic, Rachid Badouri, will have a chance to dazzle when he brings his wild solo show, The Tale of the Syrian Dragon, to Club Soda on July 23.
The three, on hand for a pre-fest get-together at Théâtre Ste-Catherine, should be on the precipice for great success beyond city limits. They all have something in common: their comedy is somewhat based on the immigrant culture shock experienced by them and their families — not unlike that felt by another city star-wit, Sugar Sammy, whose fame has since exploded around the planet.
And as is the case with Sugar Sammy, the acts of Chelliah, El-Mounzer and Badouri resonate with audiences of all backgrounds — anglo, franco and allo.
Badouri, who is of Moroccan origin, has been a force here on the franco side with his satirical shtick, but now he's seeking same on the Anglo side.
Simply put, the three have the funny down pat, regardless of the subject matter.
'If I were Rachid, I'd be insulted to be put in same category as us,' quips El-Mounzer, 37, who was born in Beirut but moved to Montreal with his family when he was two years old. 'I feel so great about this festival opportunity now. I came up watching comics like Sugar Sammy, Rachid and Russell Peters, which was so inspiring and making me think maybe I might have something funny to say with my outsider experience.'
The self-deprecating El-Mounzer cut the comedy disc You Can English a few years ago, but it doesn't reflect his cultural experience here. Much to his family's delight, El-Mounzer graduated from McGill with a degree in physiology. But much to his family's chagrin, he decided to give up a career in physiology. El-Mounzer then bolted to South Korea to teach English as a second language at a Seoul school called — really — You Can English. And so his comedy began to bloom.
There weren't a lot of laughs for Chelliah's family, whose parents, Tamil Hindu refugees, had fled the civil war in Sri Lanka. They had more pressing concerns, like starting their lives from scratch all over again.
'There's power and there's unity when you're laughing about your experiences together,' Chelliah, 31, says. 'There's a lot of release there to be able to share that with others. I have found so much relief as well as release in comedy, especially as an outsider. I'm very proud of my identity and now it's become something I can use to share as a story with everyone else and bring out some humour at the same time.'
After graduating from university in commerce, Chelliah's parents were not initially amused with her choosing to opt for comedy until she showed she could make a living at it.
'They were initially confused by comedy. They used to think I was a motivational speaker, kind of,' she muses. 'The dream now is to go on tour and put together an hour show.'
Her soft-spoken demeanour belies her blunt albeit hilarious approach. To wit, Chelliah subscribes to the Nikki Glaser school in 'the way she passively drops her punchlines.'
Beyond his background, the chrome-domed Badouri, 48, who could pass for Mr. Clean, is seeking to see how far he can push his comedy limits. Last year, he impressed audiences at the Netflix Is a Joke Fest in L.A. Now, he's become focused on upping his anglo comedy career.
'I've been almost everywhere in Quebec and I have been truly blessed, but on the English side, I'm really just starting,' Badouri says. 'I'm the one who is actually humbled to be included with these guys. They just may be the best English comics in the city. They blow me away. They are so talented.
'I'm just so thankful, though, that Just for Laughs is celebrating local talent. You can't have the biggest comedy festival in the world and not have a special showcase for our local comics who so need and deserve the opportunity.'
The comedy world has dramatically changed over the last few decades with the non-stop proliferation of material on the internet, social media, streaming networks and YouTube. Comedy no longer just entails club and theatre gigs.
'So many stories have already been told,' El-Mounzer says. 'Stories about just being from an immigrant background in and of itself is not interesting anymore. It might have been 20 years ago. Now, you have to stand out beyond that. There are so many comedians out there from multiple different backgrounds. Original comedy now has to become a lot more personal for audiences to connect with.'
Chelliah concurs: 'I've been really big on not perpetuating stereotypes because they've already been done so much. I'm very intentional about that. A lot of the comics from our kind of backgrounds are very conscious of that. That was the previous generation. Now, we're more open to talking about the experiences outside our cultural identity. I just love that shift we're going through now.
'Comedy really comes out of all manner of chaos, culturally or otherwise. Good comedy comes out of experiences and trauma and pain and sadness.'
Or to crack open that old philosophical chestnut, attributed to Mark Twain: 'Comedy is tragedy plus time.'
'It always comes down to math, doesn't it?' Badouri opines. 'And a little exaggeration, too. OK, maybe a lot.'
AT A GLANCE:
The 43rd Just for Laughs Festival runs July 16-27. Wassim El-Mounzer will be performing in The Montreal Series: The Montreal Show at 8:30 p.m., July 18 at Théâtre Ste-Catherine. Raajiee Chelliah will be performing at 10 p.m., in the late show in the same series at the same venue. Rachid Badouri brings his solo show, The Tale of the Syrian Dragon, to Club Soda on July 23. For tickets and information on all JFL shows, visit hahaha.com.