Actor Christopher “Johnny” Daley will headline The Kings of Jamaican Comedy live event in Dorchester, Massachusetts, on Sunday, August 25, as part of Boston’s Carnival Weekend celebrations. He will be joined by fellow comedians Jookie Jam and Mr Lemon. The award-winning actor and comedian, in an interview, stated: “I believe that one of Jamaica’s greatest untapped creative resources is the incredible acting talent that resides in our beautiful little island.
I think the time has come to unleash that resource. And I’m ready for the moment and ready for the world.” Daley is a former child star known for his role as Johnny in the acclaimed local production Lime Tree Lane .
According to Daley, Jamaica has excelled at the very highest level on the world stage in numerous arenas, including music, athletics, fashion and beauty, but the nation’s thespians are yet to have their big day. “We have given the world the Marleys, Shaggys, and Sean Pauls,” he said, “as well as the Usain Bolts, Asafa Powells and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryces. We have had four Miss Worlds.
But in the realm of film, theatre and television performance, we have yet to fully set the world ablaze. Certainly, icons such as Sheryl Lee Ralph and the late Madge Sinclair have definitely made and continue to make an indelible mark on the acting industry. But I feel that now, we are at a moment where the interest in Jamaican stories being told by Jamaican actors has never been higher.
And I’m excited to be part of that renaissance and to see what the future can bring.” Daley references recent film and television productions which have been either partially or completely set in Jamaica, featuring Jamaican actors or actors of Jamaican descent in key roles. Among them are Netflix ’s music industry drama Champion , Hulu ’s Oprah Winfrey-produced Black Cake , Paramount’s hit biopic Bob Marley: One Love, and Idris Elba’s urban drama Yardie , in which Daley had a supporting role.
But he is especially excited about his upcoming appearance in the much-anticipated HBO/Channel 4 (UK) television series Get Millie Black . The project is a crime drama surrounding Jamaican-born detective Millie Black, formerly of Scotland Yard, who returns to Kingston to work missing persons cases for the local police force and finds herself involved in a case that could blow her world apart. He portrays no nonsense Jamaican detective, Lance Stennet, whose tense relationship with Black heightens the drama around the difficult case.
Daley will also hit the stage at Premier Restaurant and Lounge in Lithonia, Georgia, on Sunday, October 13, for Laugh A Ton, heading a line-up that also includes Fancy Cat and Kathy Grant, and then again on Sunday, November 10, at the annual Grace Jamaican Jerk Festival in South Florida. In Jamaica, he will appear at Grace Food Festival at Hope Gardens on Saturday, August 24, and he continues to host the Johnny Live Comedy Bar at his own venue, Johnny’s Place, every Tuesday night. Daley said he was a mischievous primary school student when his principal suggested he join the school’s drama club.
He won the leading role in his first school play and was awarded the Best Actor Award by the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission when the play was performed in Jamaica’s Festival Drama Competition. His prize was a summer scholarship to Jamaica School of Drama (now Edna Manley College) and it was there that he met acting teacher and television writer Melita Samuels, who effectively changed Daley’s life. “Melita Samuels was being commissioned at the time by JBC Television — now Television Jamaica — to write a television series about a group of residents in a small Kingston community, and it was called Lime Tree Lane ,” he recalls.
Overnight, Daley and the entire cast of Lime Tree Lane became instant celebrities and household names. “It became apparent to me very early on that, to most people, I was always and forever going to be known as Johnny from Lime Tree Lane , so at some point you just decide to work with it,” he shared. Daley made the transition from child star to adult actor and now, over three decades later, has nearly 40 major stage productions to his credit.
His screen appearances include ABC TV ’s Going To Extremes , feature films such as One Love co-starring Idris Elba and Ky-Mani Marley, as well as Kingston Paradise , currently screening on Amazon Prime ..
