Rundown is back with plenty of fun and laughter

Rundown –is the name given to a kind of fish stew – but it is also the name of the Cayman National Cultural Foundations annual comedy review. The laughter and magic were back with a bang.

The show was created in 1991 by Dave Martins, who carefully mixed the show’s ingredients and boiled them right down. The bones of the show are satire, song, and funny skits and a gentle making fun of some of the people who Cayman loves. Mr. Martins always said that he wouldn’t write anything that he couldn’t say to someone’s face, so that the humor was warm and kind, rather than cold and cruel. Mr. Martins left for a while for his homeland of Guyana but this year made a special appearance during the first week of the show.

The show began with all the cast ‘wearing’ giant photos of politicians – who each joined in the beginning calypso-style song bearing sharp, one-line topical barbs. Matt Brown is a big star in the show, and his amazing talent (especially his eerie skill for getting voices just right) dazzle; but the other cast members were great too. There are too many to name, but I could see Rita Estevanovich who did a great impersonation of Henry Muttoo in a spoof of the Rundown Rehearsals, and then there was Jevaughnie Ebanks, who was very funny too, and is surely another one of the show’s stars. Leroy Holness has performed at every single Rundown. Other shining talents included Eldon Chisholm, Giselle Webb, Troy Rodgers and Rachael Geopolla. They were all great – but the show is greater than the sum of the parts, and it was the magic of the chemistry that flowed between them which made the show special. Really, everyone was a star.

The first sketch showed difficulties in navigating the new roads and roundabouts – and every way they turned one couple seemed to end up at Camana Bay. The scene ended by a spoof raid by customs officials – who told everyone who was a Caymanian to “go and stand over there,” which resulted in hilarity when everyone who was not Caymanian stood there, and the only two Caymanians started wondering if they were really Caymanians after all.

Matt Brown shone in the third scene – where he did the voice of a well-known local radio talk show host, Sterling Dwayne Ebanks, as well as the voices of some of the other people who regularly phone in to offer their advice. It was hilarious, especially when a caller from Cayman Brac was phoning in with nothing better to talk about than trying to see what the crew of a passing ship was eating for lunch with his binoculars.

The audience loved every second of it. Shows like Rundown do us good, because they help us let off steam by laughing at things which would otherwise get us down.