Kathy Grant schools her audience
Published:Tuesday | December 24, 2019 | 12:00 AMYasmine Peru/Senior Gleaner Writer
When Kathy ‘Tan Deh Deh’ Grant takes to the stage to do her comedy routine, she has a way of schooling her audience, whether the lesson is on how to properly show appreciation for an act – via shouts loud and long – or how to act when going downtown. Sometimes she pauses dramatically, while her audience is in the midst of a bellyful of laughter, to remind them, rather politely, that she is a teacher. And, believe it or not, she really is.
A theatre arts graduate of the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, Grant is a full-time drama teacher.
“I have been teaching at the primary level for a little over a year now, before that the school was an all-age institution, but it was regraded,” she told The Gleaner. Grant, however, admitted that teaching is not as fulfilling as it used to be.
“I love teaching. I love the kids, but of late the people at the top not listening to teachers, and that’s a big issue,” she stated.
amusing female comic
A stand-up comic who scores high when it comes to fully engaging her audience, Grant can lay claim to being one of the most amusing female entertainers on the circuit at this time. Many will recognise her from the hugely popular Jamaican television comedy The Ity and Fancy Cat Show, where she emerged as one of the most memorable performers.
Her acting has been enjoyed by viewers over the 10 seasons of the show, in which she played several characters, with the most popular being her hilarious portrayal of Miss Jennifer – the domestic helper who locked her boss out of his own home and whose signature line is ‘Tan Deh Deh’.
An engaging and multifaceted performer, a modest Grant says she never really thought of herself as having any special gift to make people laugh. “I honestly never thought of myself as funny until Ity Ellis said it. That’s when I started to really take it serious,” Grant disclosed.
A regular on the annual Christmas Comedy Cook-up, Grant has represented Jamaica with distinction at comedy venues in North America and the Caribbean.
Earlier this month, Grant ventured on a stage that she has not seen in many moons. She got the opportunity to show her talent in the one-weekend-only David Tulloch play, Jamaica’s Sweetest, and she is still excited about this.
“I am really glad to be back on stage,” she told The Gleaner. Quizzed as to the reason for her hiatus, she replied simply, “Actually, nobody never really call me fi do no play. I was the resident host at Johnny’s Comedy Bar and David Tulloch visited one evening and afterwards asked where I was all along. I was right here, but it’s a clique and they use the same people over and over again,” Grant explained.