Rude jokes and base humour has crowd in fits at Just for Laughs

It was, one suspects, the best ‘fart-in-a-baby’s-face’ joke anyone in the Fairmont Southampton on Friday had ever heard.

No-one expected it. I mean who says that? 

Robert Kelly that’s who. And he had the Just for Laughs crowd in stitches with his uninhibited and, at times, plain abusive look at some of the more physiological pleasures of life - like having gas or the liberating feeling of getting older, fatter and not giving a damn about it.

The annual comedy night again proved a laugh-fest. Hosted by the smooth tones of Alonzo Bodden, whose easy manner belies some potent punchlines,

Kelly was preceded by Bermuda’s own Jonathan Young, Brooklyn’s Will Sylvince and Canada’s Steve Patterson.

In between, Alonzo seamlessly kept the audience glued to the stage. 

His bewilderment at the furore at the rights and wrongs of gay marriage was a particular highlight - (‘why should I worry about that when my house is worth $8?’).

Young, a Just for Laughs regular, mercilessly poked fun at the island’s politicians -— Michael Fahy took a hit -and shed light on white guys’ inability to look good bald.

The punchline was not one for the easily offended.

NYC’s Sylvince regularly referenced his Haitian upbringing and also featured a slick sketch on the joys of flying business class for the first time. 

It was an unhurried performance and all the better for it as he allowed the jokes to sink in and grow with the routine.

He also cuttingly mocked some of the more affluent-looking members of the front row: ‘Has anybody flown business apart from these three down the front!’

The night took a slight left turn with Patterson, whose more deliberate, staccato delivery gave him a slightly unhinged presence on stage.
It worked a treat when he hit his stride with some wonderfully-observantnotes on Bermuda based on a walk around Hamilton — ‘it took six minutes’ and a read of a local paper.

His attempt to understand how the island has managed to produce a cross country skier, Tucker Murphy, good enough to qualify for the Winter Olympics brought the house down and, while his routine ran out of steam slightly, his attention to local detail hit the mark.

Kelly, who stars in the TV show Louie, then took to the stage and it was immediately clear who was in charge. 

His rapid, bawdy, in-your-face style was soon seeking out victims - again in the front row.

Anybody slim and pretty was immediately dismissed with relish, while the less perfect-looking specimens on the front row were rather cruelly pointed out and hailed as the way to go. 

Kelly showed no mercy - and it was straight up funny.

The subject matter wasn’t sophisticated but the pace never relented as he defended his habit of wearing nothing but knee socks in bed and explainedwhy his ample mid-section means a dice with death every time he ties his shoes ‘I don’t know whether I’m coming up again’.

But it ultimately came down to fart jokes, albeit it very good ones in a baby’s face. According to Kelly, ‘if you don’t find that funny you might as well die’.