MP In The House, but the Butler's Gone Missing!

Happy Lunar New Year! It was surreal for Pamela & I as we returned to the office today after the long Lunar New Year weekend and public holidays. This is the week MediaCorp 'shuts down' in a cost-cutting effort company-wide. Darkened corridors, empty car parks and quiet as a graveyard. Most staff are on forced leave except for what I'd love to label as 'essential' staff like us. Gee...it's nice to know we're 'vital' since The Living Room goes on - rain or shine, good times or bad.

As usual, we had some great conversations going in the studio. Hope you didn't miss them!

Before I go on, here's some trivia:
- Which Member of Parliament set up a theatre group with his wife and some friends some years back?
- Which constituency's residents were initially concerned when told that a former polyclinic building in their estate would be turned into a foreign worker dormitory, albeit temporarily?
- Which public relations firm just hired an MP as an account director for its public affairs practice three weeks ago?

Answers: Baey Yam Keng, Queenstown, Hill & Knowlton

We hosted perhaps the most youthful-looking MP this morning. We invited him onto our show the day after we'd heard he had joined Singapore's largest PR agency Hill & Knowlton. After explaining to us how a common thread ran through his jobs at EDB, MICA and most recently Capitaland, it didn't seem far fetched that he would join the industry and farther hone his communications & PR skills. Furthermore, which MP wouldn't be in need of those skills given their regular meet-the-people session and the granting of the occasional interview with the media. You can read periodic blog entries by Yam Keng at http://www.p65.sg.

Kickstarting today's first episode in the Year of the Ox was our chat with theatre and stage director Loretta Chen and actor Timothy Nga. After chatting with the both of them, something tells me What The Butler Saw will be a blast. It's the same sense I had after we featured Hossan, Elena and Dwayne on our show ahead of Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs. And the show was truly sensational, drawing rave reviews! So we say, times are bad, morale's low, handouts have been announced, what are you waiting for?! Go spend it on tickets to catch this promising production that boldly sells itself as the 'wackiest farce' in town this year! We all need some cheers and lots of laughter in these times! Staged by Zebra Crossing Productions, it opens at the Drama Centre Theatre next weekend.