3 questions with: Just-for-Laughs comedian Mike Ward

For the 34th year, the hottest comedians in the world will descend on Montreal for theJust for Laughs Festival.With so many funny people in one place, we wanted to find out about what makes them laugh:their biggest fails, their best (profanity-free)jokes and the funniest thing about this city.

In today's edition, Quebec comedianMike Ward, who is hosting the Nasty Show from July 20to July30 and will take part in a Q&A on his role in the British filmThe Comedian's Guide to SurvivalJuly 29.

CBC Montreal:Can you tell us about a time when you experienced a comedy fail? A joke that didn't go well, an awkward moment orsomething that didn't go as planned.

Mike Ward:I was doing a show in London, and I have a friend who is in a wheelchair and I was talking about my friend, and a woman in the audience started yelling that that was racist. It was weird because I was kind of trying to reason with her and I was like, "That's racist? But it's not a race."

So then I was trying to make fun of a weird lady but everyone in the audience was super drunk and half the audience starting going with the woman, saying "Ya that is racist." Half the room left, and half was really into it. It was just really bizarre.I never made it to the end of the joke.

CM: What is your best short-form G-rated joke?

MW:I have no G-rated jokes. I think my best G-rated joke is that I got a kid from World Vision, because you can get them on the internet now, and as soon as I saw the kid I said "That's the one I want. Add to cart."

CM: What's the funniest thing about Montreal?

MW:Definitely the people and the festival.I think for tourists, Montreal is a super bilingual city. But whenever you tell people from Boston and New York "Yeah you should come to Montreal, it's super bilingual," they get here and everything is written in French and they freak out.

Tourists think everyone's going to be bilingual and most people are, but there's always that one person that you'll meet in a store. [The tourist says] "Hi, I'm from Boston" and they're like "EN FRANAIS" and the tourist is like "Ahhh! Why did I come here?"