60's Comedians Who Appeared With Our Bands

As artistes on the stages of many dance halls like the SJAB Building at Beach Road, the F & N Hall at River Valley Road, the Capitol Cinema at North Bridge Road or even the National Theatre at Tank Road we had the previlege of meeting some of the best comedians of the 60s.

Hamid Bond (image above) was one of them. Sometimes with his side-kick Ah Leng they had the patrons on the dance-floors laughing with their jokes and rib-tickling humour. A. Hamid used Malay, Chinese, Tamil and Singlish (Singapore English) to appear and relate anecdotes in between noisy, guitar group instrumentals.

Hamid was also an MC on stage, sometimes as compere to shows that needed a local dialect or language besides English. There was always hilarity when Hamid introduced the performers on stage.

There were other comedians then and just as popular. The names are familiar but where are they now? Wahid Satay, Abang Apek and Aziz Sattar are people I remember.

Hamid Bond Organisation had an office at Golden City Theatre in Margaret Drive, Singapore. Anyone?

(Image: From Andrew Lim Collection.)