It made Premier McKeeva Bush roar with laughter all night. And we’re not talking about a jibe from a political rival. It was actually the inaugural Laughter Lounge Comedy Festival
, which ran for four days over Heroes weekend. The Premier chose to attend as part of his birthday celebrations and had a great time.
Organised by Rod Jefferson and Brad Watts, the festival was overall a side-splitting success.
Wednesday night’s kickoff party at Elements, ‘The Ignition’, co-hosted by Executive Class Entertainment and The IZ, was nicely attended. Music kings were DJ Kool Ant (T-Pain’s tour DJ) from Nappy Boy Records.
Thursday night saw a free comedy show for charity at Karoo in Camana Bay. Chicago’s Damon Williams briefly performed to the delight of the packed restaurant. This was a sneak-peak of what was to come and many at Karoo attended the Friday and Saturday night shows as a result.
Friday night at The Great Room was headlined by Chastity Washington from Milwaukee with Williams hosting. As a treat, Damon’s friends who were co-headlining Saturday night, Deon Cole and Michael Colyar (both from Los Angeles), also gave a short performance.
Laughter Lounge favourite Tony Sculfield also made an appearance and did a set. Sculfield was not even on the line-up, but jumped up on the mic at the request of Williams, as he had come back just for some vacation and to celebrate Damon’s and his own birthday.
Saturday night was sold out at Vivendi in the Strand with standing room only. Promoter Watts said: “This was by far the best crowd that Laughter Lounge has had since its inception.
“At the request of Damon, Chastity performed once again even though she was not scheduled. Sculfield once again hit the stage for a segment and then the headliner’s Deon Cole (lead writer for the Conan O’Brien show) and Super Comedian, Michael Colyar (winner of Ed McMahon’s Star Search), did about an hour each.”
The whole event was finished off with a final after party at Elements. Watts said: “We had a huge crowd that danced until 3.30am to tunes by Supa Star J Kwik, Poison Dart and Cayman’s own DJ Von.
“Chastity was a huge hit with the crowd on Friday night. She talked about being a former school teacher and how the little darlings were actually little hellions. She impersonated Michael Jackson’s Thriller dance and even spoke about how she sobbed ferociously when she got word of his death. She had the house roaring when she demonstrated how she still continued to do the Thriller dance whilst sobbing. The facial expressions sold the joke.
“She went on to say that the rest of the Jackson 5, mentioning Jermaine and Tito, were out at Michael’s grave telling him to, ‘get up man. We got a show to do. Quit playing’.”
Williams was a crowd pleaser as usual. Having been here a lot, he knew how to win the crowd with jokes about Kirk’s and the mosquitoes from when he was here in September. He said: “The mosquitoes have formed an arrow shape and flying directly for me. The next time September rolls around, I’m going to send a comedian that I don’t like to perform.”
Cole was hilarious in his own right. The crowd loved him. Colyar came with so much energy on stage, that he had the crowd worn out from laughing.
Watts added: “The comedians absolutely love being in the Cayman Islands. They kept on saying how they could live here and how amazing it is. They also thought the crowds were great and all seemed to really enjoy interacting with the crowds, posing for pictures after the show. They love the food here too.
“It was such a success, not only are we planning on making this an annual event, that we may try it bi-annually. We are already in talks about having a comedy competition here, which would attract numerous comedians from all over.
“We are taking February off from the monthly Laughter Lounge, but will be right back in action in March.”
Maybe Premier Bush might be at that one too. As he left, he said: “It was a great show, I really enjoyed it.”
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