Humour in most unhumorous times

After an absence of a couple of years, the Link Show has been revived at the National Cultural Centre. In the build-up to elections, which will no doubt lead to rancorous exchanges, continuing bitterness and still bring us no nearer to resolving our political differences, the Link Show brings relief and laughter to large audiences.

In expressing pleasure over the Link’s enduring success, I declare an interest in that I am a friend of Ron Robinson and Gem Madhoo-Nascimento and an admirer of their matchless contributions to theatre in Guyana. But I can say also as a member of the Link audience over many years that I have had my share of boisterous laughs and have taken vicarious pleasure in the evident joyfulness of the audiences at the Cultural Centre. The Link Show has become a national cultural institution.

There is something in the criticism that Link Shows tend to be repetitious, but then the dilemmas of life and the obtuseness and pomposity of officialdom also tend to be repetitious. It is true also that many themes worthy of satire are not touched, but then to have touched all such available themes in Guyana currently would have been to extend the Link to the length of a medieval passion play.