A few days ago we cited some of the highlights of the production by playwright/actor Dale Butler and his talented troupe in their presentation of his latest play, Celebrating the Life of Hubert Smith, Sr, at the Fourways Inn.

The performance was different from their previous utterly spiritual year-long variations of Climbin’ Jacobs’ Ladder and leanings towards The Second Last Supper that had hundreds packing different churches. And it marked a brilliant transition in a theatre-dinner setting to a secular stream taking Fourways audiences on a lively song and dance, with wit and humour. The three-course dinner was charged at $30 a plate.

It brought the late Hubert or “Hubie” as he was sometimes, called, back to life, rising from a prodigious nine-year-old ukulele-playing singer captivating audiences at the old Colonial Opera House and at the legendary Choy Aming’s Clay House Inn. He was such a hit attracting locals and tourists alike that the Princess Hotel invited him and his gaily dressed Coral Islanders band to be featured there. Eventually he became the hotel’s music director.

Hubert wrote more than 50 songs the most famous being Bermuda is Another World and Yellow Bird. The Government’s Trade Development Board made him its music ambassador when ever it went touring the USA drumming up business. Government House invited him to perform at exclusive receptions for the late US President John F Kennedy and for the Queen.

Dale Butler in his play dramatises how something radically upsetting happens to Hubert. He became aware of strategies by up-and-coming younger entertainers to oust him from his position as president of the Bermuda Musician and Variety Artist which he had founded 30 years earlier.

Such was the impact on Hubie that he was stricken with a heart attack and suddenly died. It is at this point that many in the audience were emotionally charged as actor Charles Jeffers, and his real life son Jermaine Jeffers, impersonating Hubert took him to “The Great Beyond”.

At first Hubie was perplexed about where he was. Then father actor Charles Jeffers let him know he was actually a the Pearly Gates. But he could not enter the Gates (of Heaven) unless or until he had answered satisfactorily three soul-searching questions addressed to him. Yours truly thought that was the high point of this fantastic show. It has to be seen and experienced to be fully appreciated. The show runs through the next three nights.