Five Questions with … Ian ‘Ity’ Ellis | Entertainment

Ian ‘Ity’ Ellis is a name that, when stated, has the potential to quickly set a smile on anyone’s experience. Right after all, as a expert comic, he has been evoking laughter for a lot more than two decades. But Ellis, a Christian, an astute businessman, a brother and a father, is a great deal a lot more than fulfills the eye. He describes himself as passionate, prolific and prayerful. But those people adjectives do not adequately sum up the male he is and offers only but a tiny glimpse into why he is so loved and highly regarded in Jamaica. In this week’s version of five Concerns With … we delve a minimal bit deeper into the lifestyle of a male that has contributed so a great deal to the enhancement of comedy in Jamaica.

When did you realise you had a knack for building men and women chortle, and how did you end up translating that into an actual career?

From as early as my significant-college a long time at St George’s Faculty, I found I was not only intrigued in accomplishing, but would stir excitement as I entertain fellow learners with what I thought was remarkable deejay and singing competencies. At just about every lunch crack, or all through a teacher’s absence, the boys would start off beating the desks rhythmically and I did not fall short to oblige them with impromptu amusement. On the urging of my classmates, I accepted an invitation to complete at Alpha Academys Large School for Girls annual barbecue in my remaining significant-college 12 months. Luckily, I was not booed off phase, but I would afterwards study as I, alongside with Extravagant Cat, deejayed as opening functions for my brother Blakka Ellis, that men and women identified humour and hilarity in my animated singing, deejaying and dancing antics. It was those people early a long time, accomplishing for the then Komedy Klub promoter, Claudette “Miss Likkle” Pious, that fashioned my introduction to expert stand-up comedy a lot more than two decades back. Appearances in numerous television ads afterwards, especially Courts Jamaica, primary to numerous requests to entertain at office environment parties, college barbecues, and other corporate capabilities signalled the arrival of a comedic job as a accomplishing artiste.

How do you balance ‘Ity the comedian’ and Ian Ellis, the person you are away from the phase, and what is the most placing change amongst the two?

A colleague once remarked that I show up to have the ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ identity split, 1 staying welcoming and cheerful and the other mysteriously violent, but that is significantly from the reality. I believe for the reason that of my ever-current roles as a significant operator of a comedic leisure business with accounting teaching and qualifications, juxtaposed with my active job in stand-up comedy, men and women locate it tough reconciling the two. I’m in office environment by day (around a desk, strategising, handling finance, organizing the upcoming dwell occasion or television sequence), even though at night time I’m on phase (these times on the web) someplace entertaining laughter lovers. Nevertheless, it is not extremely tough to balance the two, for the reason that no matter whether I’m at the rear of the camera as government producer or in front as actor-comic, the style is still the same – comedy. The placing change amongst both of those is, when I strike the phase as ‘Ity’, my concentrate in only comedy, even though off phase, my passion is divided amongst God, household and entrepreneurial pursuits (in that purchase).

Was there ever a time when you thought you would do a thing else? Pursue a different career?

I labored as an accountant for fourteen a long time with leisure mogul Chris Blackwell’s Island Group of Corporations, especially Strawberry Hill and Island Jamaica. As for ‘pursuing a different profession’, not specifically. But I’m definitely growing my general public persona, developing new platforms, stepping not away from comedy, but into motivational speeches and preaching sermons.

What is 1 thing men and women would be shocked to study about you?

That my most new general public physical appearance was Sunday, July five, 2020 getting my comedy to the pulpit even though critically preaching the undiluted phrase of God at the Increased Portmore Tabernacle Church, headed by the Rev Lynval Earl Lewis (a childhood buddy who I performed small league soccer with at Boys’ City).

For youthful men and women searching on, wanting to get into comedy, what would be your suggestions to them?

Be authentic. Research the completed comedians (nearby and intercontinental). Detect and study the unique types even though developing your possess. Very last but not the very least, study the change amongst accomplishing for a dwell viewers and to an unseen viewers by using a social media system.