Seeing Sugar Sammy live for the first time, you come away mulling over a number of important things, even as you massage your cheeks for the cramps induced by over an hour of constant smiling. Even when Sammy points up the ugly realities of racism, you can’t help but laugh.

That could be because Sugar Sammy –real name Sam Khullar –wraps everything up in a candy-coated confectionary that makes the ugly truths lying behind the veneer of polite society easier to swallow. When I interviewed him last summer, Khullar said he felt humour was one of the most effective ways of truth-telling, because it doesn’t come off as preachy. “Every joke comes from the truth,” he’d told me. “Comedy is a creative way to get points across, and it’s a good reflection of our society. We do it in a style that people want to listen to.”

The sold-out crowd assembled at Toronto’s Winter Garden Theatre Friday night definitely wanted to listen. A cultural hodge-podge reflective of Toronto in 2009, the audience was keyed up and ready for whatever truths –shocking or otherwise –Sammy had to deliver. Malawian comic Deliso Chaponda gave a smashing, snappy warm-up, joking about everything from immigration problems to the challenges of sex with taller women; he even mentioned the economic crisis, providing a bit of perspective on what “going without” means to North Americans versus what it means in his native Africa. Ouch. Chaponda’s observations were witty but stylistically he’s a lot more brutal than his Indo-Canadian counterpart.

Still, Chaponda provided the perfect, sour-y balance to the main attraction, for sweet is just what Khullar comes off as in-person. An immensely likeable stage presence, Khullar mixes a Chris Rock-like sarcasm with fellow Canadian Shaun Majumder’s wry observational style; he seemed to have a blast living up to his name too, flirting with female audience members situated close to the stage (as well as their relatives and significant others) and pretending to quickly retract any ugly truths with “Just jokes!” and an aw-shucks shrug –and-shuffle. Khullar knows when he’s pushing buttons, and though he keeps on pushing, he does it in a much gentler way than, say, Russell Peters might.

Interestingly devoid of the fury that characterizes so many comics, Khullar wasted no time in giving shout-outs to his South Asian community as well as other races in the house, which he simultaneously milked and mocked with equal vigour. He also indulged in a fair bit of improvisation, repeatedly returning to audience members in the front of the house. What makes Khullar so unique is that he chooses to make fun of commonly-held racial stereotypes (cleverly), even as he indulges in them to make his point. Affecting a number of accents throughout the evening –Indian, Lebanese, French, and British, to name a few –Khullar didn’t play favourites when it came to poking fun. Even as he’s making you laugh, he’s making you think. Imagining what a white audience member near the front thought after cracking a few jokes about a Sikh who had come in late (and had been the butt of other jokes), he noted, “you had to look behind you to see if it was okay to laugh at that.” We laughed because we were relieved it wasn’t us, but we laughed because we also knew it was true –and totally absurd.

Whether it’s working out various audience members’ names (and the range of those names –Conwar, Nahad, Elspeth -is a good demonstration of the variation of audience Khullar attracts) or improvising over the zealous (if surreal) shouts from an ardent Obama supporter in the balcony, Khullar remains kind in his approach, never entirely skewering his audience entirely, nor upsetting their expectations of what it is he offers: witty insight into being a successful brown man in North America. Relating stories of travels abroad, Khullar noted that in Dubai, South Asians are waved through airport security, while white people are deemed suspicious. True or not, it gives one pause in terms of our ideas around race. Similarly, sharing his tales of growing up in Montreal, he delivered a devastating impersonation of a Quebecois he observed as a child insulting his father; the delivery was funny, the subtext was horrifying, but again, that spoonful of sugar helps to coat the ugly pill –even if the aftertaste remains long after.

And it wasn’t solely race issues that were explored, but ideas around modern sexual mores and sexual identities. Sex has long been a favoured topic among comics, not only because of humanity’s continued fascination with it, but its inherent hilarity remains a rich mine for exploration. Khullar tackled topics like dating, and male versus female expectations around sex as it relates to money, eliciting a strong rebuke from the theatre’s female patrons. It was perfect for the comeback about “refunding” his dates, and it put Khullar back in their good books, and indeed, proof positive that “sugar” was indeed the right epithet for Sammy to choose. There’s something about Turmeric Sammy that just wouldn’t suit, even if the terrain he covers leaves a pungent, lingering memory.