Comedy for a cause - Sunday's 'Come Mek We Laugh' benefits Best Care Foundation

'Come Mek We Laaf' was the clarion call from the Best Care Foundation and a number of Jamaicans responded. They arrived as the shadows of the late Sunday afternoon fell on the Old Hope Road-based Jamaica College. There, they experienced the battle of wits between familiar and unfamiliar comedians, armed with weapons of satire on topical subjects. Each challenge was scored with degrees of laughter.

Christopher 'Johnny' Daley was Yanique Moore's favourite warrior of the evening.

"I really enjoyed his section," she said.

And indeed, Daley was at his comedic best.

"I love to make people laugh," he told the audience. He poked fun, briefly, at the topical dress code for parliament, before showing his creative genius in his analysis of music then and now. The subjects were Bob Marley and Ding Dong.

First time responder Fabian Bowes, who went for the relaxation, said, "The material was good for most of them"

"The Police, Tubeless, excellent... excellent for somebody who is not recognised, and somebody who has a career other than entertainment, he is natural. It [his jokes] poured out naturally and he was just born for that," he said.

Bowes was not pleased by all the acts, though.

"The first performer [Christopher Larman] has a lot of work to do. But for the rest of them, you can see there is a passion for it [comedy] and they deliver."

The rest of them were Lemon, Duffton Shepherd, Pretty Boy Floyd and Leighton Smith.

Smith was the closing act; his look on customer appreciation day was memorable. He berated organisations, such as banks, for not allowing customers to give samples of their products on customer appreciation day. But then he pondered, "what if Dovecot had a customer appreciation day?"

Pretty Boy Floyd, who performed before Smith, was just as hilarious. Few stones were left unturned. From his opening extempore attack on guest artiste Pessoa, to the preplanned satire on the current spate of violence rocking the nation, he was on a roll.

The unaware Pessoa opened the second segment. He moved through the audience, engaging mainly the females with songs of various genres. Either the length of his set or the number of songs delivered did not go down well with Floyd, whose performance followed.

"I did not know that Pessoa was doing an album launch," the comedian expressed to MC, Deon Silvera, before addressing the audience, mixing serious commentary with frivolity.

"You know why I do this? Is because you have to acknowledge children with disability, and I think that the Best Care Foundation is doing a fantastic job in staging events like these. And we the comedians have sacrificed our time to be here tonight. All the people who are here tonight, raise your hands in the air if yuh nuh bathe."

He ended with an encore ribtickling look at weapons of war.

Also performing were children of the Foundation school and the band, Earth Kry. Overall, it was an exhilarating event. Come Mek We Laaf, will head to St Elizabeth for the first time this coming weekend.

entertainment@gleanerjm.com