Sto­ry by AN­NA-LISA PAUL

Lil­lan Pierre is the 2020 Queen of J’ou­vert, while her fa­ther Her­bert “Nat­ty” Pierre is the King of J’ou­vert.

The five-time queen best­ed her daugh­ter and last year’s win­ner, Lynelle Pierre, to again re­claim the crown.

Lil­lan’s pre­sen­ta­tion ti­tled “Dr Deyals­ingh Work­ing Over­time To Block The Coro­na Virus” saw her dressed in a white shirt and black pants, stand­ing atop a crude wood­en stool po­si­tioned in front of a make-shift is­land, whilst hold­ing a rope at­tached to a box la­belled Coro­na.

As the box ap­peared to be get­ting clos­er to the is­land, Lil­lan used a stick to whip off the black cloth which had been cov­er­ing the is­land.

The crowd’s laugh­ter erupt­ed as they saw two cas­es of Stag and two cas­es of Carib stacked in­side the is­land.

Chore­o­graphed by Her­bert, Lil­lan’s act was one of four put on by var­i­ous mem­bers of the Pierre fam­i­ly who are long time en­trants in the an­nu­al Old Mas Com­pe­ti­tion.

Her­bert’s pre­sen­ta­tion ti­tled “Ah Now Fright­en Of What I Said And Did” saw him dressed in a yel­low satin bath robe, com­plete with a pair of black-rimmed glass­es and a yel­low head wrap.

Oth­er props in­clud­ed a make-shift bed on which he laid, while hav­ing “night­mares” about past ac­tions which could land him in jail.

The hu­mor­ous piece de­light­ed the scanty au­di­ence which lined In­de­pen­dence Square to view the pro­ceed­ings, as many ap­plaud­ed and called out to Her­bert for more.

The J'ouvert King and Queen—father and daughter—receive congratulations from Port of Spain Mayor Joel Martinez (left), and Culture Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly (right)

KERWIN PIERRE

Beam­ing with pride as he hugged Lil­lan close fol­low­ing her vic­to­ry, Her­bert said the win had now moved the fam­i­ly’s amal­ga­mat­ed ti­tles up to 12 queens and ten kings.

Look­ing for­ward to cel­e­brat­ing his 76th birth­day on Thurs­day, Her­bert said he had not orig­i­nal­ly planned to par­tic­i­pate in Mon­day’s com­pe­ti­tion but be­cause his grand­son was un­well, he agreed to sub­sti­tute for him.

This marks Her­bert’s sec­ond win since the Pierre fam­i­ly be­gan par­tic­i­pat­ing in the com­pe­ti­tion.

Mean­while, Lil­lan al­so ex­pressed sur­prise over her win as she was ex­pect­ing her daugh­ter Lynelle to per­form a hat-trick this year.

Pressed to say if she felt pres­sured to en­ter the com­pe­ti­tion every year, Lil­lan laughed as she said it was a com­bi­na­tion of her fa­ther’s per­sis­tent ca­jol­ing and a de­sire to bring hu­mour to se­ri­ous sit­u­a­tions.

Her daugh­ter Lynelle, who copped the sec­ond place this year, al­so proved to be a crowd favourite with her pre­sen­ta­tion as a Dame Lor­raine.

Dur­ing her brief pre­sen­ta­tion, Lynelle held aloft a plac­ard with the names of past prime min­is­ters, rat­ing them be­tween one to five.

How­ev­er, the name of for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar was not in­clud­ed on the list, but in­stead, it was writ­ten on a piece of pa­per and stuck to the Dame’s be­hind.

Third place win­ner in the queen cat­e­go­ry, Lav­ern Smith, elicit­ed laugh­ter all around as she placed a plant pot in the mid­dle of the road and be­gan “rolling” it from side to side. She lat­er pulled some pa­per from a pock­et and pre­tend­ed to roll a joint on her be­hind.

DOWN­TOWN J’OU­VERT QUEEN RE­SULTS

1. Lil­lan Pierre — Dr Deyals­ingh Work­ing Over­time To Block The Coro­na Virus

2. Lynelle Pierre - Dame Lor­raine Rat­ing Of PM’s Of The Past

3. Lav­ern Smith - Ah Rolling D Weed

DOWN­TOWN J’OU­VERT KING RE­SULTS

1. Her­bert Pierre - Ah Now Fright­en Of What I Said And Did

2. Ronelle Pierre - Chi­nee Guy Vis­it Girl He Met On Face­book

3. Lennox Mc Ewen - This Year, Ah Mash­ing Up Dem Pears