Professor Nuts

One cross-dressing, hip and backside wiggling dancer (who was tolerated and then dismissed by the handclapping audience) and first comedian Rohan Gunter into the Linstead leg of Comedy Fest on Saturday night, the event teetered on the brink of chaos, including a couple bottles that banged ominously on metal chairs.

Sure, there had been a few chuckles, for Emcee Pretty Boy Floyd and like when Gunter said when he asked a pregnant woman running from a hospital why she was trying to escape and she replied "me nah go inna de labour ward. De baby father a PNP".

But the members of the small audience, which occupied about a quarter of the available seats, with others choosing to stay further back at the Linstead Skating Ring, were fed up with the substandard audio, with the shouts of "fix de mike!" interspersed with calls for "refund!"

Gunter, working valiantly through the horrible sound, was fed up too, trying different positions on the stage and even coming off it to get closer to the audience and then going back, at one point even trying not to use the microphone at all.

Absolutely no light

It did not help either that the lighting was ludicrous, with a portable floodlight set up behind and to the performers' left shining more on those siting in the front row of the audience than the person onstage, who had absolutely no light on their face.

"De light fe bring forward, de actor fe go backward!" one person shouted.

Eventually, Gunter gave up trying to hold the fort. "Sort out de mic ting an me will return," he said.

Then, as it seemed Comedy Fest Linstead was in a sticky jam that could not be resolved without a refund and apologies, a grinning hero came to the rescue. There were spontaneous cheers as Professor Nuts strode to the front of the audience and conferred with Smith, then, unamplified, said to the people who quieted down to hear him, "you want entertainment, the artiste dem deh ya".

Then he told them that they were going to use the sound system, set up at the other end of the large room, so the audience should relocate to that end. Effectively, then, front and back were reversed and for a few minutes there was a cacophony of metal chairs scraping against concrete as they were turned to face the sound-system console. Part of the backdrop was now the 'Male' and 'Female' signs for the bathrooms.

An organiser for the show explained that they were not responsible for the sound, which had been provided by the venue.

After the chaos, though, there were chuckles and quite a few outright belly laughs up to when Comedy Fest Linstead ended just before midnight. The audience now in an arc around the performers, with no raised stage to work from. "I've never done a show with so much drama," Pretty Boy Floyd said, resuming MC duties after Medicine did a passable deejay stint.

Lemon played on the audience's sentiment, looking cross as he said "I am vex! Me upset! Me mad! You know why me mad? Me hungry."

The chill was officially broken, the audio adequate though not stellar and Comedy Fest Linstead was officially on the road. He read from the dancehall gospel of Beenie Man to a woman who asked for a Ritz-Carlton booking to get together, Lemon saying "pon bed, pon floor, against wall".

'In-your-face' style

The audience guffawed for his descriptions of a policeman giving a driver parking instructions ("yu ago wine up an come inna me") and the stage was set for a barrel of laughs. It was delivered, mostly with the 'in-your-face' style, not much finesse, but none seemed to have been required. Apache Chief and Sarge, who were huge hits with the audience, worked in imitations of many performers in their extended set, jibed each other and interacted with members of the audience. Apache's spot-on imitations of Mavado, Lady Saw and Buju Banton, especially, took the house down.

Pretty Boy Floyd's teasing of an audience member with a $1,000 bill and between performers jokes were huge hits also.

Granny's dancing, from lifting her ample padded bosom in time to the beat of I'm Alive and wiggling her padded posterior to various dancehall beats, had the audience laughing. But it was her rapid wig flipping and then removing the wig of a lady in the audience that had the howls reaching to the high zinc roof.

Later, it was the deejays time, Professor Nuts asking for and getting a round of applause for arranging the revised set-up. His performance was short (he had to go to another show) and superb, Nuff Man Deh Ya ending at "junjo teet Desreen" and the audience exploding on 'Don't' when he suggested a particular product should be labelled "manufactured by de Bowcat Limited". A couple jokes were tossed in and it was a nutty time all around.

A minute or two into Black-er's showing, a few people started to leave and the deejay, after a long, eventful night, plugged Impulse energy drink before the night ended. Inspector Madden was listed for the event, but did not perform.

Comedy Fest moved to Ocho Rios, St Ann, last night.