Star Sightings at ...

Went for my first Actors Studio performance this year and it was not disappointing. Maybe because I wasn't expecting anything much in the first place Met Synical there who also wrote a review of the event.

I thought I saw Marion Caunter (8TV Quickie host) but wasn't too sure about that so wanted to double check with my friends.

"Eh, is that Marion Caunter ah?" I asked.

That drew blank looks from them. I gave up asking those Astro-fans and non-8TV Quickie watchers after a while. What's the point of getting excited about bumping into a celebrity when none of your friends never even heard about them? Exactly.

But they noticed Hans Isaac - someone whom I really didn't recognise but have vaguely heard about.

And one of my friends bumped into her German boss who was there with his family. She wondered if they actually enjoyed the show as some of the lines were delivered in Malay by the actors. Harith Iskandar was mindful about that and he made some efforts to steer back the conversation into English.

The show proper started around 8.35pm with Edwin Sumun coming out to introduce the cast for the night's show - Harith Iskandar, Gavin Yap, Ida Nerina, Afdlin Shauki and Reza Zainal Abidin. I was rather disappointed to hear about the absence of Jit Murad and Patrick Teoh. Jit because he's such a witty and talented actor and Patrick because I was really curious about seeing the normally serious him doing all sorts of funny stuff on stage upon the whim and fancy of the audience. It was a full house yesterday night.

Actorlympics was similar to 'Whose Line is It Anyway? (WLIIA)' but our actors were not really at par to the WLIIA players. But casting all expectations aside, I enjoyed most of the show anyway. Afdlin Shauki was the most natural wit amongst them all and I loved how he portrayed Marlin, Nemo's dad in a scene from 'Finding Nemo'.

It was the first time I saw Gavin Yap performing and I was quite impressed with this young talent - he really could make you believe he's a tough black dude (if you close your eyes, that is). Ida Nerina was energetic and bubbly, while Harith could crack you up with a look on his very expressive face. He also did a mean dance on stage, Bollywood style complete with the fancy head turns.

In short, the whole show was fun and of a good concept although there are areas that can be vastly improved upon - both in the audience's input and the actors' ability of not to be caught off-guard. Perhaps Actorlympics 2006 would fare better? We shall see