Chesty Nutty Bang Bang
Comments by Kenneth Lyen

Singaporeans, as all of us know, have a deficient sense of humor. Especially our civil servants. They spend their lives sitting through one meeting after another, keeping as quiet as a switched off handphone, careful not to voice any personal opinions, and not to take any initiatives. Creativity is absent from their vocabulary, and unpublished studies have shown that this is probably due to a gene deletion.

The Media Development Authority (MDA) is a special subset of the civil service, and is responsible for nurturing the creative industries in Singapore. In other words they are trying to convert Singapore from a left brain to a right brain nation. Unfortunately, the term "creative civil servant" is regarded as an oxymoron. Thus, the senior civil servants in the MDA have decided to dispel their public image as unimaginative dullards, by performing a rap. A rap? You’re joking? No, they wrote an original rap song, danced to it, and filmed it. Serious. And some kind soul posted it on YouTube:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=ksw2UqTyhhc

They did not realize that they had exposed themselves to Jonathan Lim. Poor devils. Jonathan used back their own weapon, a rap, and unleashed a torrent of word bullets, scoring hit upon hit on these sitting ducks. Bang! Bang! Quack! Quack!

Flush with victory, Jonathan, an experienced serial killer, brandishes his satirical guns (real guns are banned in Singapore), and goes on his annual rampage, shooting the pompous and the arrogant with verbal chestnuts.

Indeed Jonathan is so successful, that some people liken him to a literary terrorist. It is rumored that Michael Moore may be preparing a documentary called "Dicko", named after Jonathan’s favorite target. No relation to the other Lee family, which he also takes pot shots at.

He takes potter shots at JK Rowling. And he confuses poor Sir Ian who drifts from Gandalf, to Magneto, Dumbledore, King Lear, and to Sarin.

Jonathan is at his best when he tackles Beauty World. At a fraction of the cost, he is able to densely populate the stage with six performers, and keep you in stitches throughout. So much so that you cannot even enjoy a nice nap.

I especially like his skits on the Pirates of the Caribbean, Greased Lightner, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, If There’re Reasons, and 881251. I like the comment on the President’s Star Charity, which precipitated a bout of raucous laughter.

It is a madcap evening. Jokes arrive wave after wave, like a perpetual tsunami. You barely survive one wave, when another one comes and knocks you down. You are sinking into this torrent of intelligent subversion, and your mind drowns in a sea of parody.

But... we have a problem, Houston.

The first problem is that in order to best appreciate the jokes, you need to have seen all the films, plays and musicals referred to. In other words, to derive full value for money when watching Chestnuts, you need to do your homework. I have a suggestion for Jonathan. Please give us advance notice as to which movies, plays and musicals to watch. Or perhaps you can run a pre-show educational course, plus a post-show course, where you can slowly explain all the jokes to dimwitted people like myself. Better still, please provide us with lecture notes followed by a test, so we can see if our score improves from year to year. A Diploma awarded by the Academy of Chestnuts would be a bonus.

The second problem is that the projected English translation of skits in Chinese, is almost unreadable. Hence most of the jokes are lost. I was sandwiched on all sides by non-Singaporeans, and they did not laugh at the Chinese-language skits. Jonathan, you may have to think of some way to translate the jokes into English auditorily, and not rely on the projections.

Chestnuts has grown from a 2-man show to a 6-person show. Jonathan shares the stage with Judy Ngo, Rodney Oliveiro, Celine Rosa Tan, Yeo Yann Yann, and Joakim Gomez. All are brilliant and have perfect comic timing. The music arrangement by Bang Wenfu is just out of this world. Production values are getting better and better. Thanks to Adrian Tan.

Chestnuts is an institution. I think that all Singaporeans should go and watch this year’s Chesty Nutty Bang Bang. Have a really good laugh. Laugh at authority. Laugh at others. Laugh at yourself.

"We are not amused." - Queen Victoria.