Conventional wisdom holds that laughter is the best medicine. Well, Bermuda is a community that needs all the medicine it can get these days and the proverbial ‘best medicine’ landed in abundance at the luxurious Fairmont Southampton on Sunday evening.The night saw the arrival of comedy superstar Mike Epps to our shores, courtesy of fledgling promoter Nasir Maynard and his Envy Productions promotions company. The show was completely sold out, leaving standing room only in the ample Poinciana Ballroom, and making parking around the hotel quite a chore.Something like 1,200 comedy lovers jammed into the ballroom; a clear indication that Bermuda is starving for this level of world class entertainment!With an already outstanding response from the public, all that was left for Envy Productions was to deliver a show worthy of such popular approval. They did not disappoint! The sheer volume of bodies in attendance made the process of getting the audience in and seated quite a task. After around two hours or so, the audience was finally seated, relaxed, and ready to fall out laughing.The show kicked off just after 8pm with the soothing sounds of the incomparable Sia Spence.She was typically good, delivering powerful vocals with consummate ease, and thoroughly seducing a reluctant crowd that was eager to laugh and seemed unresponsive at first. By the end of her 15-minute set however, another Bermuda audience was eating out of the palm of her hand. As always, nicely done Ms Spence.Jah Simmons was the emcee for the evening, and he quarried laughs-a-plenty from the capacity crowd in between each successive performer’s set.Like Ms Spence, Mr Simmons has become a perennial go-to entertainer on the local circuit, delivering quality and charm with every gig, and proving that Bermudians can make it as professional entertainers when given the opportunity to do so.Speaking of opportunities, Sunday night marked my first opportunity to enjoy the comedy stylings of a certain Bermudian comedian called Jonathan Young.This guy was crazy funny! His set was entirely comprised of Bermuda-based humour, and he had the crowd absolutely rolling in the aisles at times during his 15 minutes. His political humour was particularly sharp, earning him the ‘line of the night’ when he poured praise on former Premier Ewart Brown for, among other things, improving air arrivals by “four Uighurs”. Hilarious!Gina Love was the next and last local act. The veteran comedienne delivered an adult-themed set that tickled the crowd and kept the mood light throughout.She made way for perhaps the most uproarious bit that Mr Simmons delivered all night, when he spoofed the West Indian tendency to aggressively pursue er, ‘big’ women; funny stuff.Next up was L Boogie out of the boogie down Bronx, New York.He made a few amusing observations about Bermuda and Bermudians, saying that all we produce here is “rum and babies”, and that the streets are littered with “scooters and chickens”.These comedic observations were met with appropriate laughter, but L made the slight error of calling his contemporaneous surroundings Barbados one too many times, thereby losing the audience somewhat by the end of his set.He was good, funny, but calling out the wrong country, city, or town more than twice is an entertainment no-no; in fact, less than once is the most preferable amount.Hopefully, he’ll be back at some point to rectify his serious faux pas.International movie star and comedian Mike Epps brought the thunder to the dance at some time around 9pm.Silly from the moment he hit the stage, this bona fide next generation King of Comedy delivered a solid hour of sweet medicine that had the crowd in stitches!He danced, pranced, jumped, jibed, and extracted laughs from the audience like Arabs extract oil from the earth.He poked fun at big girls, ageing with tattoos, rappers, singers, and pretty girls with ugly attitudes during his generous set, keeping the energy high, and the laughs flowing.Highlights of his set included his hysterical description of an encounter with an angry Stevie Wonder, references to his numerous film appearances (which many in the audience recited along with him), and a poignant reference to Bermudian gangsters.He mentioned the most violent of the local gangs and then indicated his confusion with: “I don’t know why ya’ll are so angry in Bermuda, it’s beautiful!”The crowd responded with unanimous approval. It was a beautiful moment in the story of a country under siege, and a strident declaration from a community that is fed up with the bloodletting.Let’s hope it manifests in the larger community going forward.For now, Envy Productions knocked their latest endeavour out the park!By all accounts, this fabulous show was an unqualified success, and the promoters have promised more high quality entertainment in the coming months.Look out for the Envy Productions’ tag, and make sure you don’t miss the next one, because we all need a little medicine sometimes.