Trinidad entertainer Sprangalang in need of prayers

(Trinidad Guardian) The com­mon-law wife of 69-year-old co­me­di­an and ac­tor Den­nis “Spran­galang” Hall is call­ing on the na­tion to pray for his speedy re­cov­ery and to bless the hands of the ten doc­tors at­tend­ing to the en­ter­tain­er.

The 2019 Ca­lyp­so Queen, Natasha “Sexy Suzie” Nurse, told the Sun­day Guardian in a tele­phone in­ter­view, while at Hall’s side, “More than pub­lic­i­ty, what Sprang needs is the na­tion’s prayer.”

Hall, a di­a­bet­ic, was rushed to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, on Fri­day at 4 pm, af­ter ex­pe­ri­enc­ing seizures. We were told he al­so sub­se­quent­ly suf­fered a stroke and is un­able to speak, but recog­nis­es the faces of friends and rel­a­tives who have been flock­ing to the hos­pi­tal since his ad­mit­tance.

A som­bre sound­ing Nurse said the doc­tors were still try­ing to find out the root cause of his seizures and the stroke, as Hall was very dis­ci­plined with his med­ica­tion.

“They are run­ning a lot of tests. So I am just wait­ing for in­for­ma­tion to find out what may have caused this and what else might be go­ing on with him,” Nurse said.

Though the stroke has af­fect­ed the fa­ther of one’s speech, Nurse said there was still some move­ment of his limbs, as he does not like nee­dles. “You could see on his face he is feel­ing like he’s locked down. So he’s fight­ing them be­cause you can see that he wants to move,” Nurse added.

She said while she was hap­py for the over­whelm­ing sup­port from the thes­pi­an’s friends, it was im­por­tant he re­mained calm and the crowd of vis­i­tors less­ened to al­low this.

“I un­der­stand care and con­cern, and as I said I ap­pre­ci­ate it very much, but Sprang’s body is go­ing through a lot and more than any­thing, he needs prayers,” Nurse re­it­er­at­ed.

Asked if pri­or to the seizures there were any signs of Hall feel­ing un­well, Nurse said no, that it all hap­pened quite sud­den­ly.

“I am pray­ing and ask­ing God for every­thing to go well be­cause the doc­tors are re­al­ly work­ing on him. I must say I am get­ting 100 per cent sup­port from them, which I ap­pre­ci­ate,” said Nurse.

Play­wright and broth­er of Hall, Tony Hall flew in im­me­di­ate­ly from abroad, up­on learn­ing of his broth­er falling ill, to be at his side.

Hall is known for his wry sense of hu­mour, which was very promi­nent even in his stand up co­me­di­an acts and in con­ver­sa­tions as a ra­dio talk show host .

The “I am telling you” laugh mak­er was an in­te­gral part of T&T’s first-ever in­de­pen­dent pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny called Banyan Pro­duc­tions, co-found­ed by Christo­pher Laird. His was the face seen in many lo­cal tele­vi­sion shows and ad­ver­tise­ments like the fa­mous Di­ana pow­er mint com­mer­cial.

Hall al­so starred in the 2003 Cana­di­an tele­vi­sion sit­com, Lord Have Mer­cy, play­ing the role of pas­tor Cuth­bert Stevens, along­side come­di­enne Rachel Price.

In 2007, Hall’s act­ing skills were put to se­ri­ous work, tak­ing on the role of a ‘wise man’ in the fea­ture film, A Win­ter Tale, by Frances-Anne Solomon.

His most re­cent ap­pear­ance came in 2018 when he starred in the of­fi­cial mu­sic video for Kes The Band’s Hel­lo.