Sunday November 4, 2007 Hong Kong TVB's annual musical extravaganza TVB Singers Celebrate The Anniversary <翡翠歌星賀台慶> was held yesterday evening at TVB City. Nearly a hundred singers took part in the show that was hosted by Eric Tsang (曾志偉) and Carol Cheng (鄭裕玲). Following with tradition, the male and female stars split off into two teams for a sing-off and dance-off, with Alan Tam (譚詠麟) leading the "Red Men" and Teresa Carpio (杜麗莎) leading the "White Ladies". The competition was won for the second year running by the red team and a surprise appearance was made by Hacken Lee (李克勤) at the end of the show to present the winners with their victory flag. Hacken had announced previously that he would not be taking part in this year's show following the recent birth of his son, but he appeared at the studio at around 10pm and handed out chocolate cigars to the reporters. He revealed that his son Ryan's Chinese name has been chosen as Lee Lap Yan (李立仁) and he pointed out that the character "yan" (仁), meaning "benevolent" was the most important and this was the character that he selected. Hacken said that he was overjoyed to be a father, but the feeling was hard to describe, so he urges all his childless friends to hurry up and have children and experience the joy of parenting for themselves. He added that he is learning how to burp his son and is busy taking lots of photos and videos of him. Hacken explained that his sudden appearance on the show was at the request of TVB General Manager Stephen Chan (陳志雲) who had called him a couple of days ago to see how he was and ask if he could attend the show. Hacekn said that as his paternity leave was almost over and he did not live too far away from TVB City, then he agreed to appear and announce the winner. The other special guest appearance at the show was George Lam (林子祥). Notable absentees were Denise Ho (何韻詩), rumoured to be at odds with TVB after losing out on awards at the last JSG selections, and Niki Chow (周麗淇) who is recovering from a dislocated knee. The acts for the evening seemed a little dated, unrefined and unoriginal. Elanne Kong (江若琳), Jade Kwan (關心妍) and Bianca Wu (胡琳) performed a pole and table dancing routine, but the injuries and bruises from rehearsals could be seen clearly and there were criticisms over Jade's "chunky" legs. Alan laughed that they had been practising in Wanchai's red light district. However, Jade pointed out that this was becoming a very popular mainstream dance and exercise in the States. Susanna Kwan (關菊英) led youngsters Stephanie Cheng (鄭融) and Janice Vidal (衛蘭) to perform a medley of classic songs, but Janice's performance was below par and she missed her lyrics on several occasions. This gave Alan more opportunity to joke around, but he was met with a defence from Carol who said: "Well at least she is better than you, always forgetting your lyrics." The men's performances were also below standard, with Eric Suen (孫耀威) losing track of his dance steps and singing out of tune during the "topless" dance with EO2 and William Chan (陳偉霆) from Sun Boy'z. When Eric went over to the ladies to strut his stuff, he was met with vomiting gestures from Joey Yung (容祖兒). Patrick Tang (鄧健泓) and Hins Cheung (張敬軒) performed a re-enactment of the "Half-Man Half-Woman" performance that was made famous by the Leslie Cheung (張國榮), but their disastrous performance raised more laughter than applause. However, Patrick and Hins felt that they had given their best and joked that with their female personas, they could go to Thailand and become ladyboys. credits: batgwa.
