DiverseCity: Jonathan Atherton

Here's a stand-up comedian with impressive multilingual capabilities: Jonathan Atherton speaks Indonesian, Malay, Thai, Japanese, Swahili, Luganda and German, with some knowledge of Burmese Tagalog, Lao, Hindi, Batak, Urdu, Arabic, Hokkien and Mandarin. In 1991, the Australian comedian was run over by a truck in Thailand and evacuated to Australia, undergoing a dozen major operations but never losing his sense of humour. A cabaret singer coaxed him to perform on stage after hearing his comedic anecdotes and so began Atherton's stint as Down Under's best export since The Wiggles.