The cast donned the Grand Mas­ter's trade­mark tie and top hat. They jour­neyed from his child­hood in Ari­ma in 1922, to his de­par­ture a decade ago. Through dance, dra­ma, de­sign, song and steel pan, mem­bers of one gen­er­a­tion cel­e­brat­ed a ge­nius from an­oth­er in an evening brim­ming with mu­sic, move­ment and mem­o­ries.

Putting the­o­ry in­to prac­tice

Queen's Hall's The­atre Camp cul­mi­nat­ed on Au­gust 6 with Tay Lay Lay with Kitch, a full-scale con­cert star­ring the 80 chil­dren who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the an­nu­al event's 2010 edi­tion. The hour-and-a-half-long pro­duc­tion show­cased the skills and cul­tur­al lega­cy to which the chil­dren had been ex­posed over a three-week pe­ri­od.

Hav­ing fo­cused on the con­tri­bu­tions of as­sort­ed cul­tur­al icons–from Boogsie Sharpe to Bob Mar­ley–in years past, this time around the camp ho­n­oured the life and work of Ald­wyn Roberts, The Lord Kitch­en­er.

Artis­tic di­rec­tor, No­ble Dou­glas, wel­comed the au­di­ence to the fi­nal event, as she had done for al­most a quar­ter cen­tu­ry. A colour­ful back­drop fea­tured Kitch's un­mis­tak­able sil­hou­ette as mo­tif. A show­case of both tal­ent and tu­ition, the 2010 camp fea­tured work­shops in steel pan by Dougie Red­don, dra­ma by Saman­tha Pierre, de­sign by Lari Richard­son, dance by Kwasi Romero, voice by Ja­nine Ro­mano, and yo­ga by Lor­raine O'Con­nor. The camp us­es a work­shop ap­proach in which lead­ing pro­fes­sion­als in the per­form­ing arts of­fer hands-on tu­ition in their dis­ci­plines to small groups.

A stroll down mem­o­ry lane

The show kicked off with an ex­tem­po-styled bi­og­ra­phy of the late ca­lyp­son­ian: "Lord Kitch­en­er's stat­ue is at Roxy/The man used to dress re­al foxy," the stage-full of chil­dren sang. Then there were ren­di­tions of Kitch clas­sics, among them Sug­ar Bum Bum and Bee's Melody. Ju­nior mem­bers of the cast took their places be­hind the steel in­stru­ments loaned by Phase II Pan Groove, and sup­port­ed by their rhythm sec­tion and di­rect­ed by Red­don, they ren­dered a sweet, sim­ple ver­sion of Roberts' Tay Lay Lay.

Thrilling dance num­bers by mem­bers of the ju­nior and se­nior groups re­spec­tive­ly, moved seam­less­ly from the sounds and steps of mod­ern pop mu­sic to the melody and moves of Kitch tunes with­out los­ing en­er­gy. The se­nior steel­pan group of­fered more com­plex arrange­ments of an as­sort­ment of picks from the Grand Mas­ter's cat­a­logue. The sto­ry­line cul­mi­nat­ed with Kitch be­ing wel­comed to heav­en by a bevy of ca­lyp­so greats. Fol­low­ing the pro­duc­tion, the chil­dren ho­n­oured their tu­tors, coun­sel­lors and camp di­rec­tor, Char­lene Har­ris, with ap­plause and a fi­nal song.

More In­fo

The Queen's Hall's The­atre Camp has been staged with­out in­ter­val since its in­cep­tion in 1986, and con­tin­ues to be the flag-bear­er of the hall's com­mu­ni­ty out­reach pro­gramme. Con­ceived 24 years ago by the pa­trons of Queen's Hall as a tool to de­vel­op greater cul­tur­al aware­ness and skill among young peo­ple, the camp has evolved in­to an in-de­mand, sol­id arts pro­gramme. Its cul­mi­nat­ing con­cert has tra­di­tion­al­ly of­fered stu­dents an op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case their artis­tic dis­cov­ery.