It was not politically correct and it surely did not appeal to more genteel tastes, but the "A Belly Full of Laughs" comedy show held at City Hall on the weekend seemed to hit home with its audience.

Featuring an array of American stand-up comedy acts interspersed with skits featuring headliner Kim Whytley and local favourite Nadanja Bailey, the show rode a wave of laughter through two and half hours of humour often bordering on offensive.

Opening the show, Ms Whytley - the popular star of television "My Wife and Kids", "Oh Drama" and the film "Next Friday" - looked fabulous in a red, tie dye combination which played up her natural assets.

She set the tone for the show immediately by insisting that all those politely seated in back rows immediately move to the front.

With only roughly 100 people attending Friday night's performance, City Hall might have echoed a little empty, but Ms Whytley ensured everyone would take part in the festivities.

Her opening material was filled with Bermuda references ranging from astute to downright raunchy and peppered with references to her breasts.

The Bermuda men are so fine, she said: "They are going to have me hooking on Court Street."

But the material soared when Nadanja Bailey was added to the mix playing both a sulky schoolboy disappointed with Santa and, in later skits, the boy's mother.

Attired in shorts and women's tights, tiny Mr. Bailey managed to command attention next his Hollywood-voltage partner with a combination of effective body language and comedic timing.

But Mr. Bailey's profanity-laced tirade against Santa probably woke up the audience as much as the DJ's high-energy accompaniments. There were reports that a number of people were so offended by the show's first performance on Thursday night that they walked out at intermission.

But, they may have been too hasty, as the second portion of show contained the best of the stand-up material, making it worth braving some of the crass humour which proceeded it.

A long segment featuring Angelo Dundee, who has appeared on Comedy Central, pushed the envelope with jokes about physically-challenged dancers and homosexuals, plentiful references to weed and a fairly sexually explicit segment.

Mr. Dundee seemed to recognise how close to the edge his humour was, however, warning the audience "you're all going to hell" after they laughed at some of the material.

Comic "Special K" of Uptown Comedy Club shone through his segment mixing topical humour on terrorism, the sniper and Iraq with lessons from the 'hood.

"Why are they holding up black people at security," he asked of the post-9/11 climate. "No black person ever in history every hijacked a plane. We don't steal planes. Where are we going to take it? We can't take it back to the hood."

Meanwhile all black people in America had the same reaction to the arrest of the sniper suspects, he said: "Nooooooo. Why did they have to be black? Now, no one is going to get a job for the next six to eight months."

The final performance of the night was from portly Ronnie Jordan, another Comedy Central regular.

Mr. Jordan's used self-deprecating humour masterfully and had a sharp eye for the idiosyncrasies of Bermuda life.

"You've got gangs here," he said incredulously. "How are you going to have a gang on scooters? And you have no guns, so what do have to be able to do to get in? Push real hard?"

He added: "You can tell who is Bermudian because they walk around with their helmet on. I thought it was the thing to do. I rode over in a cab with my helmet on. In the States, if you walk around with a helmet on, it mean's you've got a soft spot."

But it was his perfectly timed and musically accompanied love-hate-love-loss dance with glazed, honey bun that truly made the show worth the $35 price of admission - even for those who cringed through earlier acts.

Tania Theriault