Robinson

RECENTLY, I found myself taking the Old Ball and Chain and her permanently attached brood to see the revival of Smile Orange.

The original was the first play I had ever seen and still the funniest single experience of my life. I saw the play with my mother and stepfather circa 1973 and was captivated. The shenanigans of Ringo (Carl Bradshaw); the straight-man, Joe (Stanley Irons) and Thyril (Glenn Morrison), the Tie-tongued bus boy who would not eat oranges. "It rotten yu ballths sah!" had me in stitches throughout. Old BC's brood had seen the movie which they thought was great, but were sick and tired of hearing me reminisce that the original play made the movie look like rubbish.

So, finally, a revival. To mobilise an ambivalent brood to swerve more attractive Friday night options and arrive on time required organisational skills of which any political general secretary would be proud. Unfortunately, the result was the greatest disappointment of my life. The actors did their best, but the play was dated, had lost its relevance and was just not very funny. I felt cheated of a great memory.

Obsolete one-liners

The 'humour' seemed parochial, the plot non-existent, and the story wandered from obsolete one-liner to obsolete one-liner with no apparent theme or purpose. And then it dawned on me. My favourite play, the play I had been worshipping for almost 40 years, the play of plays, was in reality the beginning of the end of humour in Jamaican theatre. My own personal Pauline conversion revealed that Smile Orange was the first of the now nauseous 'roots' plays. It heralded the death of humour and the birth of crudity at unbearable decibel levels. Smile Orange is actually the capital base upon whom the likes of Basil Dawkins and Ginger Knight have built their fortunes.

I am sure it was unintentional on Trevor Rhone's part for the original Smile Orange was neither crude nor loud. But it was very Jamaican in a very real way - something 'foreign' to Jamaican theatre up to that time. And the players were allowed to say things like "If a black man don't play a part in Jamaica, him gwine starve to death", which hit the audience like a thunderbolt of truth at the time, but now is an anachronism in a country where successful black men can scornfully refuse separation packages of $80 million plus and then ask the court to order their former employers to shelter and maintain them indefinitely. It paints a picture of us in the immediate post-colonial state when the struggle against prejudice was fought by becoming a ginnal. The 'moral' was if you can't beat dem, con dem which is the raison d'etre of the 'roots' experience.

This set me to think about the demise of humour worldwide. As usual, the Americans started it. First, they deleted the 'u' and then, contrarily, poked fun exclusively outwards, never at themselves.

But, as the Manhattans advised:

"You know there's no stars without the night

Huh, and there's no wrong without a right

And there's no good without a bad

And when one man's happy, the other man's sad

That's how I know

There's no me without you

There's no me without youuu ..."

Vulnerable underclass

Modern comics, American talk show hosts (Jay Leno excepted) and movies all focus on making fun of somebody else, usually someone too vulnerable to strike back. So, beginning with Smile Orange, we have created a genre out of making the most cruel fun of our poor and vulnerable underclass. It was inevitable that we would imitate our new cultural colonialists by laughing at the frailties of the common man. After all, we grew up on George Carlin, an icon of the modern tradition, who never once laughed at himself. Eddie Murphy made fun of other comedians. True comic geniuses, like Bill Cosby, Rodney Dangerfield, Ranny Williams, Richard Pryor, Harry Worth and Benny Hill all laughed at themselves. Preferring to use personal experience for set-up, they rarely ridiculed easy external targets.

So, my promise to readers of this new column (both of you) is that I intend to strike back. I will revive real humour. I will not deliver any pedantic political or religious lectures. To this end, I will need your help. Anytime you see me lapsing into self-importance; any sign of a patronising tone; please fire off a warning email. Socks will immediately be gripped and pulled up. Your wish will be my command.

After all, although we are playing solitaire, it's an interactive game.