Pe­ter Ray Blood

The at­ten­dance at last Sat­ur­day's pre­miere of H2O Ph­lo's an­nu­al This Christ­mas–A Christ­mas Sto­ry con­cert, held at Queen's Hall, St Ann's con­cert can be de­cribed as healthy. Among ear­ly pa­trons were Point Fortin MP Paula Gopee-Scoon, NCC chair­man Al­li­son De­mas and COP ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith.The pro­gramme be­gan prompt­ly at its sched­uled 8 pm start with a video of the Na­tiv­i­ty, pre­ced­ing the en­trance of the trio (Ke­ston Ros­ales, Ja­son "Fridge" Seecher­an, Ju­nior Nel­son), of H2O Ph­lo, as the three wise men, singing Do You See What I See. They joined Natasha Ben­jamin, as Mary, in the manger, to sing What Child is This? Al­so in this seg­ment was Kyle Ahong as the drum­mer boy for On my drum. The First Noel end­ed the manger scene.

Skip­ping 2,000 years lat­er in T&T, Lennox Gray's Laugh­ing Chil­dren was ren­dered by Ray­mond Ed­wards, fol­lowed by The Jack­son's seg­ment, in­clu­sive of Ben­jamin singing Michael Jack­son's Some­day at Christ­mas, Mom­my Kiss­ing San­ta Claus, and Nel­son ren­der­ing Give Love.Im­mac­u­late­ly at­tired all in white, Lau­re­ston Spe­cial sang Christ­mas Joy. His ren­di­tion was punc­tu­at­ed by ap­plause, most­ly from women cheer­ing on this falset­to vo­cal­ist.Mim­ic­k­ing Ste­vie Won­der, and "led" on stage by Seecher­an, Nel­son sat be­hind key­boards to ren­der One Lit­tle Christ­mas Tree, fol­lowed by Ros­ales im­i­tat­ing the late Nap Hep­burn for Hep­burn'sTell San­ta.

This Christ­mas–A Christ­mas Sto­ry was cer­tain­ly a "good feel­ing show," in­fused with video­graph­ic in­serts of tele­vi­sion ads of yes­ter­year, en­tic­ing pa­trons, young and not so young, to clap and sing along to many of the fa­mil­iar items. Like last year's edi­tion, if ever there was a pro­duc­tion that cries out for a reprise it is this one. Two of the vin­tage ads to ex­cite pa­trons were Carib be­ing sold at $1.99 and a BWIA ad from the '80s.One of the night's most pop­u­lar num­bers was Rem­bunc­tion singing Re­la­tor's Christ­mas on Sesame Street, in­tro­duced by The Count in a video clip of Sesame Street. Chil­dren in the au­di­ence par­tic­u­lar­ly liked this one.The stage set smooth­ly mov­ing to a win­tery New York set­ting, three Trinida­di­an friends (H2O Ph­lo) met out­doors in New York, around a burn­ing bin to ren­der Come All Ye Faith­ful and Hark the Her­ald An­gels, acap­pel­la style. Ac­com­pa­nied by the band 2G, they al­so sang Sleigh Bells and Let it snow, as well as Seecher­an do­ing Chest­nuts.CAL In­vaders, which had H2O Ph­lo as its guest at last month's Pan, Parang and Pork at the Queen's Park Oval, was joined by 2G, to play Car­ols of the Bells. This ush­ered in­ter­mis­sion at 9.15 pm.

H2O Ph­lo re­sumed with a med­ley of sea­son­al stan­dards, in­clud­ing It's Christ­mas, its orig­i­nal All I Want for Christ­mas, Luther Van­dross' Every Christ­mas, A Mer­ry Lit­tle Christ­mas, Come On Every­body, and an an­oth­er orig­i­nal, Christ­mas Time Again.Ben­jamin then soloed All I Want for Christ­mas, pre­ced­ing Rem­bunc­tion singing his new sin­gle Thun­der­bolt, and Parang Whole Night. A very en­er­getic per­former, Rem­bunc­tion, broth­er of Olatun­ji, seems to be head­ing to a most suc­cess­ful Car­ni­val 2014.H2O Ph­lo re­turned to do the parang so­ca seg­ment and this in­clud­ed Sweet­est Christ­mas Lime and Neigh­bour. In this seg­ment, Tyrese Williams of Va­len­cia, who turned ten the pre­ced­ing Tues­day, guest­ed with the trio, singing his de­but parang so­ca sin­gle � Parang Sea­son. Def­i­nite­ly a young man with po­ten­tial, the Ari­ma Boys RC School stu­dent en­ticed pa­trons to sing the cho­rus with him.

Al­so one of the show's mem­o­rable mo­ments was the per­for­mance by reign­ing Na­tion­al Hu­mour Ca­lyp­so Monarch My­ron B. He sang Neigh­bour Neigh­bour and he had his au­di­ence in stitch­es by mak­ing four cos­tume changes dur­ing his song while on stage, in­clud­ing a pink evening gown. With pa­trons un­der his spell, My­ron B and H2O Ph­lo sang Mouth Parang, with pa­trons mouthing in­stru­ments.H2O Ph­lo closed show at 10.30 pm, singing its hit sin­gle Spend­ing Christ­mas With You.This Christ­mas � A Christ­mas Sto­ry is among my three picks for "best pro­duc­tion" for 2013. Pro­duced by Gold­point En­ter­tain­ment, 2G and H2O Ph­lo, its sto­ry­line was done by 2G mu­si­cal di­rec­tor Richard "Char Su" Ahong. The mu­si­cians of 2G are Cur­tis Bethelmy, Kerdice De­venish, Gabriel Bernard and Ahong.