Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

Maas Jasper at 'Comedy Fest' at the Courtleigh Auditorium, New Kingston last Friday. - Colin Hamilton/Freelance Photographer

Many people in the almost-full house for Friday night's 'Comedy Fest' at the Courtleigh Auditorium, New Kingston, wore their Jamaican colours. After all, it was on the day when the men's 4x100-metre team had demolished the old world record and, despite the women failing to finish their sprint relay, patriotic fervour was high.

And the Olympic Games in Beijing, China, were not ignored from the stage, on a line-up that added the magic of Cowen and the dance moves of Granny and Jamaica's Michael Jackson to the jokes and jibes of Prince Edwards, Leighton 'Fullswing' Smith, Urkel, Rohan Gunter and host Maas Jasper.

Edwards capped off a showing in which he combined excellent movement as he demonstrated the various positions in a bus which led to a large posterior in his face (as he sat down 'so') with superb timing with a Caribbean take on the Olympics. He said that a Jamaican hustler somehow got onto a plane to China, went to Beijing and somehow made it into the warm-up area.

Bird's nest joke

While trying to figure out how to get into the Bird's Nest, he saw a man with a long pole jog up to the official at the connecting gate and, when he was asked what his event was, he said 'pole vault'. He was let through.

Then came Asafa Powell and a number of other Jamaican sprinters and they declared that their event was track and field.

The man then had an idea. He sped away and came back with a roll of barbed wire. When the official asked what event he was participating in, the Jamaican said 'fencing'.

Hoots of laughter

There were hoots of laughter at the Courtleigh Auditorium.

Gunter also made an Olympic reference, but in a genre of entertainment where everything and everyone is fair game and there are no hard feelings at the end of the laughter, Sarge of the duo Apache Chief and Sarge pulled one on Asafa Powell.

As he stepped briskly over to a woman at the front of the audience to demonstrate his 'girl checking' ability to Apache Chief, Sarge said "when you a check girl, yu haffi move like Usain Bolt. Yu cyaa slow dung like Asafa".

There was a mixture of laughter and groans at the Courtleigh Auditorium.