Greetings and salutations, fellow stargazers! This is your Showbiz Sista getting a little preview of what the stars will be getting up to for this year’s President’s Star Charity, to be broadcast live on Oct 17. This year, the theme is “Spare A Moment To Care”, and donations will benefit 37 charity organisations.
Michelle Chia and Kui Jien will host, and the cast will include Karen Mok from Hong Kong; the Shaolin Monks of Samsara–The Shaolin Legacy fame; Vasantham Star Viknesh; percussion group Bloco Singapura together with beatboxer Charles “Stitch” Wong and nine-year-old drummer Zidann; and Adelyn Koh from the Singapore Association of the Visually Handicapped doing a duet with Singapore Idol Sezairi Sezali.
At a press conference, a whole bunch of other stars involved in the annual fund-raising do, including Gurmit Singh, Jade Seah, Tay Ping Hui, Paul Foster, Norleena Salim, and Sylvia Ratonel were present to give us a heads-up.
Gurmit and Paul, together with Adam Chen and Daren Tan, will be doing parkour—the sport of travelling from Point A to Point B in the most efficient way possible—which means climbing or jumping over obstacles in your path. “A wall taller than you—they are able to scale it somehow and get over it. If you make a mistake, your face gets bashed on the wall!” Gurmit said. “It’s been terrible. Very painful and hard. I’m 45 years old; I’ve got heavy bones.”
“We’re going to be opening the show,” said Paul. “We’ve been training for about a month now.” Is it as hard as it looks? “Yes and no,” Paul answered. “I’m quite athletic—I play a lot of sports and I train. It’s obviously a very specific skill to be able to manoevre around these urban obstacles.” Will Paul be parkour-ing to work every day from now on? “Screw public transport, I’m just gonna be running and jumping over things! It’s been really fun. Hopefully on the live set, it all goes well.”
Ping Hui will be singing. Singing opera. Italian opera. Here, Showbiz Sista will let him tell you himself.
What about Jade and Kui Jien?
Photos by Ooi Boon Keong
Kui Jien: I have no talent. No disrespect to Michelle—but because I have no talent, I’ve been asked to host, that’s all.
Jade: I’ll be playing the piano.
Showbiz Sista: You can play the piano?
Jade: Why does everyone have that same reaction?! I wanted someone to say, “Yeah, okay”.
Kui Jien: That’s one performance I’m really looking forward to.
Jade: He said he’s gonna stand at the side and give me pressure.
Kui Jien: I’ll be donating so much money, to see Jade perform.
Showbiz Sista: Because you can’t believe it, either?
Jade: Yah, whatever!
Kui Jien: I can. Jade is very talented. People just don’t realise how hard it is for her to put one foot at a time (in front of the other) and she can do it on a consistent basis, so imagine playing a song on the piano!
Jade: It’s better with the hands.
Showbiz Sista: So you won’t be playing the piano with your feet.
Jade: Maybe next year…
Kui Jien: That’s the after-hours special!
Showbiz Sista: Do you play any other instruments?
Jade: I begged my mum for piano and for violin. I broke the violin before I started! I was so excited–I was holding it, and I swung it. It kind of fell against the wall and the chin-rest dropped out. My mum was so pissed, you know. She said, “You want to do everything—piano lah, ballet lah, violin—and then you break it before you even started”!
Showbiz Sista: At least she didn’t take away your piano lessons too.
Jade: Yeah, but towards the end she kind of nagged me to practice. Which she’s doing now! She’s very stressed for me.
Kui Jien: Your mum can finally see that all those lessons were worth it.
Jade: Yeah! My dad said to my mum, “Eh, not bad ah, whatever we’ve put in is going to go live on TV.”
Showbiz Sista: So what song are you going to play?
Kui Jien: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!
Jade: Why does everyone… I’ll be playing Hit Me Baby One More Time (Kui Jien bursts out laughing). In swing. A swing version.
Showbiz Sista: Seriously?
Jade: Yeah. Seriously.
Showbiz Sista: Kui Jien, I think you need to double your money.
Kui Jien: I have it all ready.
Catch the live telecast of the President’s Star Charity 2010 on Oct 17, Sunday, at 7.30pm on MediaCorp TV Channel 5. Showbiz Sista, signing out. Live long and pop corn!
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