Lee An­na Ma­haraj

Af­ter a two-year hia­tus, Bri­an Mac Far­lane’s Christ­mas Joy: The Mag­ic Re­turns, will once again be host­ed at Queen’s Hall, Port-of-Spain, and so­ca star De­stra Gar­cia fig­ures to be a main at­trac­tion.

Speak­ing at the show’s launch on Wednes­day at Queen’s Hall, Mac Far­lane said he was ex­cit­ed to be back and to have Gar­cia singing Christ­mas car­ols in the show.

“It’s stren­u­ous, it’s tir­ing but at the end of it, when you see how much joy it brings to peo­ple and fam­i­lies, it just pays off, it’s all worth it in the end. So, I’m look­ing for­ward to it and I think there are some re­al­ly love­ly sur­pris­es in the show this year. Just hav­ing De­stra Gar­cia in a Christ­mas show, singing tra­di­tion­al Christ­mas mu­sic, I think it’s go­ing to be a huge ex­cite­ment for peo­ple and some­thing fresh and dif­fer­ent,” he said.

Mac Far­lane said hav­ing De­stra on the line-up is not some­thing one would typ­i­cal­ly ex­pect, but he is con­fi­dent she fits the role.

“She’s a great so­ca artist, but I think there are oth­er things she can do. Not that so­ca is not good, I love so­ca, I love our cul­ture, but this show is more of a tra­di­tion­al Christ­mas show, and I thought she would be per­fect and every year I try to bring some­body else in that’s dif­fer­ent,” Mac Far­lane added.

De­stra, who al­so at­tend­ed the launch, ex­pressed her en­thu­si­asm for an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to do what she loves.

“A lot of peo­ple en­joy hear­ing me sing and I think this would be very ex­cit­ing for them to be­hold. Not just be­ing part of a pro­duc­tion like this, where it’s not just De­stra in con­cert, but al­so be­ing a part of a big team, a big cast, a big pro­duc­tion, and singing, get­ting to use my vo­cals, that is go­ing to be the most amaz­ing part. It’s just go­ing to be an­oth­er dy­nam­ic, an­oth­er side of De­stra. I think they’ll be pleas­ant­ly en­ter­tained,” she said.

“Christ­mas Joy: The Mag­ic Re­turns” will be show­cased from No­vem­ber 13 to No­vem­ber 20.

Part of the pro­ceeds of the char­i­ty gala will go to­wards the shel­ter–A Safe House for Vic­tims of Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence and the T&T So­ci­ety for the Pre­ven­tion of Cru­el­ty for An­i­mals.

Tick­ets will be avail­able from to­day. Guardian Me­dia Ltd is a part­ner for the event.