When he mounted the stage in that red hot power suit I held my breath for a brief moment with a whiff of trepidation and in a very silent mood I prayed that Funny Face would not fail his countrymen as others before him had done. As it turned out, my prayer was listened to and the young comedian did not disappoint me, and I believe many others among the audience. We all had a shared hope at the aptly named comedy show A Night of 1010 Laughs and Music sponsored by MTN last Saturday night that our brother from Ghana, being the only one on stage with numerous other Nigerian comedians would not falter. And falter he did not! From when he mounted the stage through delivering his jokes intermingled with different encomiums and stagecraft to when he interacted with the host of the show, George 'Aboagye' Quaye, before exiting, Funny Face left most of the people in the audience for dead. They were dying from laughter. " The very first thing Funny Face did was to plead with the audience to laugh when he jokes because he had suffered for too long waiting for such an opportunity and if they did not laugh it would mean the end of his comedy career. That was the most well advised thing to say as he got the audience along with him right from that stage of his performance. With that initial comment made and the manner by which he took off his red jacket and only to give it to someone in the audience to hold for him helped to build a bond between him and his expectant audience. Funny Face then went on to deliver one joke after another in a manner that would not give him away as a first timer at this Charterhouse organised comedy series. He made jokes about himself, his family, his school days; his girlfriend, his friends and many more. For example, he made a joke about why he ended up as a comedian and not a lawyer or some other important professional by blaming it on the way his teachers at his early age thought him rhymes like "A Lion has a tail..." His point was that the way children are taught to say such rhymes determines what they would become in future and the manner by which he delivered that joke drew a huge laugh from patrons at the show. After a few more jokes he climaxed his performance with a joke he said on KSM's Thank God It's Friday on Metro TV last week. The joke was about how he stopped being a boxer after he had ran away from the ring in Tanzania where he was scheduled to fight a Zimbabwean opponent called Muegemuege. When the tale of the tape of his deadly opponent was read by the ring announcer he realised it would be foolhardy for him to stay on and fight to his death. The joke was good but the manner with which he intentionally struggled to mention the ring announcer's name was better. There is no denying the fact that he did very well on his maiden night on such a big stage but, in my humble opinion, there were a few drawbacks to his show that need to be polished if he wants to be in this business for long. The first is that the refrain he introduced about the fact that he had suffered for so long waiting for such an opportunity appeared unnecessarily too many times in his performance - he over flogged it; a very short and crisp reliance on that aspect of his material would have been good. Another one is that he seemed to be in a hurry to leave the stage and wherever to was what I could not fathom. Chemu, as he is known, is a known fast speaker from his previous appearances on Abeiku Santana's shows and his TV appearance in the comedy drama Chorkor Trotro but the stage is a different ball game altogether where a comedian should not be seen to be running out of breath from fast talking and the audience missing aspects of what he says. He needed to take time and graciously deliver his jokes and then leave. The third is for him to properly develop his material in order to have a big repertoire from which he can choose his jokes. He ended up delivering two jokes he said on TV the night before and although well delivered on stage it would be a hard sell on another occasion if the audience hear them too often. These mentioned however does not mean that he was a disappointment on the night indeed he passed the test with flying colours and would erase the image of Kaninja's abysmal performance from the minds of those who were at both shows. The big questions would then be these: can he survive in this business? Will he manage to sustain this new image and "swag"? What gives one hope of Chemu's longevity in this trade is the fact that he knows and he told Aboagye that "a comedian should leave the stage when the applause is loudest." That's good advice! He was indeed great on the night but Funny Face was not the only person on stage last Saturday. It was a night full of laughs and music from different performers but that he stood shoulder to shoulder with everybody else on stage needed to be highlighted. There was the great Gordons for example who brought the rear on the night of many performances although when he mounted the stage some had left thinking the show was over. Whosoever left before Gordons' show short-changed themselves if they paid to attend because he was the best on the night. I had prepared my mind to stay and watch Gordons no matter the time of the night he would appear on stage because I had seen him on a couple of times on Mnet's Moment With Mo and Comedy Club and I didn't regret it for his show was worth my time. The guy is a real master at what he does and the evidence was in the many ribs he fractured by the time his show was over. There was never a dull moment throughout the period he was on the stage and although some of the materials were rehashed, at many stages of his performance he was rightly accorded standing ovations. He made the joke of the night when he said if men could conceive and deliver babies the potential progeny of an Obasanjo and Taribu West would look like a certain Kufuor. It was a brilliant show from a brilliantly bald headed comedian whose hairlessness is blamed on lack of vitamins by his doctor although he wonders why he has hair at other places on his body. Also on stage to deliver a very good show was the never-sober and never-disappointing Klint the Drunk. You always think that you can predict Klint's performance but he always has something new up his sleeve or is it up his folded trousers? You only have to delete his foul language and you'd enjoy his jokes. MC Abbey was also very good and his performance received a huge applause although he sometimes forgot the setting and the audience. His denouncement was not bad especially when he left the stage pretending to be angry. The most disappointing act on the night for me was Helen Paul, the same lady who stole our hearts at the previous show. She could not get the audience laughing as much as she did the last time and she thought the reason was because most of them had many problems before coming to the show. She obviously had nothing new to offer. On the music side Amakye Dede was at his evergreen best delivering the time-tested highlife time-tested highlife songs he knows how to deliver and as always he got the audience to dance along with him. Then there was the performance by VIP which was also very typical hiplife - haywire. It was during and after their performance that many left thinking the show had ended. There is also the small matter of the medical doctor who mounted the stage to perform two functions and ended up with egg on his face. He was to talk about the health benefits of laughter and then deliver a joke. He did the first part well, even that is relative, but in attempting to do the second one ended up with him getting angry with the audience because they were clapping while he was giving a joke. Goodbye Dr. Kakraba Quarshie! It is true, as the saying goes, that he who pays the piper calls the tune but should George Andah climb every stage on every show his brand sponsors? Does he not realise that the tune is becoming discordant? Does he not know people get tired listening to him always talking about the same thing: can do spirit? Okay I am if nobody is, but who am I? Overall, the Night of 1010 Laughs and Music was a very good show comedy wise and the music was also good but could be better. Aboagye, the pint-size host, could have cut down on the over elaboration and the comic from him was not scintillating as it was at the previous show and the audience at the Dome of the International Conference Centre was very generous with applause where it mattered. Credit: Francis Doku Source: Graphic Showbiz