Ring Ding – More than song and dance
The Jamaica Observer’s Entertainment Desk continues with the 16th of its biweekly feature looking at seminal moments that have helped shape Jamaica over the past 60 years. here’s a concert here for all ah wi, there’s a concert here today...”
For 12 years, those lyrics led by indomitable folklorist Louise “Miss Lou” Bennettcoverley opened the bestloved children’s programme on Jamaican television, ring Ding.
The 30-minute variety show ran from 1968 to 1980 with Miss Lou as host on the now-defunct
Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation Television
(JBC TV). It featured performances by children and young adults in front of a studio audience at the station’s Kingston base.
ring Ding’s musical director was pianist Marjorie Whylie. Many Jamaican artistes made their first public performances on the Saturday afternoon event.
According to reports,
Miss Lou was not the first choice to host the show.
Bari Johnson, the show’s producer, offered the role to Leonie Forbes, but she declined. Miss Lou accepted and carved a name for herself and in the hearts of old and young Jamaicans alike.
Aspiring artistes such as classical pianist Stephen Woodham and singer Nadine Sutherland performed on
ring Ding, as well as a number of dance groups from across Jamaica.
ring Ding rivalled Where It’s At, an adult dance and talent show on JBC, in terms of popularity on the Government-owned station.
Although it retained popularity throughout its run, ring Ding was abruptly pulled from the air in late 1980, shortly after the general election that year.
At the time she got the ring Ding job, Miss Lou was an established poet, playwright, writer, broadcaster and educator. She was also instrumental in the ‘Jamaicanisation’ of the annual national pantomime.
In 1949, Miss Lou co-wrote Blue Beard and Brer Anancy
with Noel Vaz after bemoaning the absence of Jamaican culture in pantomime.
She is best remembered for poems including Colonization in reverse, No Lickle Twang, and Mout-amassi. Her books include Anancy stories And Poems In Dialect, Laugh with Louise: A potpourri of Jamaican folklore, Jamaica Labrish, and Auntie roachy seh.
She was conferred with an Order of Merit by the Jamaican Government for her contribution to the country’s culture in 2001.
Miss Lou died in 2006 in Toronto, Canada, at the age of 86. She is interred at the National Heroes’ Park in Kingston.