By Vejay SteedeInternational film and television star John (Pops) Witherspoon made the holiday season considerably merrier on Tuesday at the Fairmont Southampton.‘Pops’ was the headliner for the latest in a series of world class comedy shows produced and delivered by Envy Promotions. The show offered the last laugh, and possibly the best laugh, of 2011, and was nothing short of a festive delight.The show started pretty much on time, lasted about two hours, and delivered a ton of highlights and laugh-out loud moments; what more can one ask for from a stand-up comedy show? The elegant Poinciana Room served as the setting, while Juggling Jay provided the musical backdrop for this well put together event.Local comedian Eddie G hosted the evening with grace, wit, and charm, endearing himself to the near-capacity crowd by liberally pointing out his condition as a portly Caucasian fellow; funny. Self-deprecating humour corroborated with race humour to make Eddie G’s contributions quite amusing, and give him a firm foothold on the climb to the top of the local stand-up comedian heap.The ravishing Sia Spence opened the festivities proper with her usual panache, delivering stirring renditions of Melanie Fiona’s bitter ‘4 am’ and Deborah Cox’s gorgeous ‘Nobody’s Supposed to be Here’ to a thoroughly rapt crowd.By this point in the evening, the audience had swelled to something like 700-or-so members, making this event a well-attended, comfortably managed affair. Even the bars were accessible! Nice.The first of the international acts to take the stage was up-and-coming comedian Lanre O from Boston. Lanre was funny, charming, and quite engaging for a relative stranger. He poked fun at Bermuda’s small roads, racism, communications confusion with his gay friends, and Bermuda shorts, and was rewarded with plenty of unbridled laughter. The only real complaint is that Lanre delivered all of ten minutes of material, then left. I guess complaining that he left too soon is a bit of a compliment. Well, any compliment is well deserved, because Lanre was decidedly satisfactory while he was on stage.Approximately 40 minutes after the show started, John [Pops] Witherspoon landed on stage and proceeded to rip a hole in the ballroom roof. Mr Witherspoon opened with a five-or-so minute riff of his famous movie lines, which extracted many a laugh from the expectant crowd. The man was instantly funny; striking an image and air that was exactly what his long-time fans would have expected. Dressed in pastel coloured pants and a clownish pastel striped shirt, he eventually pointed out the desperate necessity to co-ordinate by proudly showing us his yellow watch, bow tie, shirt stripes, and (wait for it) teeth!Fluctuating between slapstick silly and rolling-on-the-floor-laughing (ROTFL for the chatspeak generation) uproarious, Mr Witherspoon delivered a gem of a show. He coaxed laughs from his mesmerised audience with wacky observations about 300lb vegetarians, the holidays with family, New York City pigeons, Wilt Chamberlain’s tall house, famous folks who fell from grace, Jermaine Jackson’s hair, his own limited participation in the Civil Rights Movement, Bills, President Barack Obama, and growing up wearing two left boots. Downright funny stuff.Mr Witherspoon continued to employ a spattering of his famous movie lines throughout his 80 minute set, but it was not nearly enough to detract from his unexpectedly excellent stand-up act. There were laughs at every turn, and moments when audience members were left quite breathless to boot.It was an utter treat to see a veteran comedian, an iconic character actor, and a seriously funny guy return to his roots on the live stage and absolutely blow the doors off the barn! This was a truly satisfying experience.The evening came to a close at the wonderfully civil hour of 9.30pm, leaving plenty of time to go out for chicken (which John’s confessions about his love for chicken made almost mandatory). All-in-all, this was a tightly managed, well-presented, highly entertaining pearl of an event, and we should all look forward to the Envy Promotions 2012 line-up of comedy shows.