Co­me­di­ans from around the coun­try came to­geth­er at Kafe Blue in Port-of-Spain on Thurs­day night for a ben­e­fit con­cert called “Laughs for a Leg­end,” in aid of the ail­ing vet­er­an co­me­di­an Tom­my Joseph.

Tick­ets were $40 but hats were passed around to col­lect tips as well.

“We want­ed to give back,” said Louris Mar­tin Lee-Sing, who or­gan­ised the event as part of the ‘Laugh on the Ave’ rov­ing stand-up com­e­dy show.

“Tom­my Joseph is some­body that we all have seen grow­ing up, just an in­spi­ra­tion to pret­ty much all of us. Some­one who beat re­al hard for us to be here to be do­ing stand-up com­e­dy ex­clu­sive­ly and hav­ing sold-out shows. It’s be­cause of peo­ple like Tom­my Joseph or Er­rol Fabi­an.

“So every sin­gle cent of this evening’s pro­ceeds is go­ing to­wards Tom­my’s med­ical care,” Lee-Sing said.

Joseph suf­fered a stroke around Au­gust 14 and has been re­cov­er­ing slow­ly, ac­cord­ing to his wife, Judy Joseph.

Joseph was in­vit­ed to Thurs­day’s cel­e­bra­tion of her hus­band but was un­able to at­tend.

“She’s stay­ing at home to take care of him and we do ap­pre­ci­ate that she al­lowed us to have this show for Tom­my,” said Lee-Sing

“We’ve been re­al­ly over­whelmed by the love. Our fel­low co­me­di­ans have shown us by com­ing out and giv­ing up them­selves for free tonight, and let me tell you some­thing eh, co­me­di­ans don’t like to work for free!”

The show fea­tured first-time stand-up comics as part of the open mic night, as well as emerg­ing comics, so­cial me­dia stars like Kee­vo and long-time vet­er­ans like Ken­neth Su­per­sad.

Mid­way through the show, host Jr Lee, who al­so hosts CNC3’s What Tong Say, told the au­di­ence they’d raised just over $5,000 but they were work­ing to­ward a goal of $11,000. The fi­nal tal­ly came in at $7,640, which was de­liv­ered to the co­me­di­an’s wife yes­ter­day.