“Tanks” goodness the funny bimbo “sistel” Barbarella will be back
soon. “Everybirdy” seems to love her very much.
Yes, Michelle Chong will return to star in the latest season of
comedy sketch show The Noose after being absent from the popular TV
show for one year. Next week the actress-director starts shooting
episodes for Season 7 of the Channel 5 programme, which will
premiere in April. She tells this to Life! in an exclusive
interview, during which she also reveals that plans are underway
for a movie about Chinese KTV girl Lulu, another of her beloved
Noose characters.
Chong, 36, says that she is “very excited about creating new
material” for cartoonish character stereotypes including
Barbarella, the ditsy girl who has a penchant for dating Caucasian
men, and Filipino maid Leticia Bongnino.
“Even now at parties, people are still saying ‘Good morning, Ma’am,
good morning Sir, my name is Leticia’, whenever they see me.
“And I still see people writing things like ‘Tanks everybirdy’ and
‘sistels’ in posts on Instagram, which are references to
Barbarella’s accent. So I think people are still definitely
interested in seeing these characters again.”
After five seasons of doing the show, Chong had left the show as
she wanted to spend more time behind the camera to make movies.
Last year, she made coming-of-age road movie 3 Peas In A Pod. It
was her second film, following her debut feature Already Famous,
which was released in 2011.
Coming up in Season 7, theatre actress Siti Khalijah Zainal, better
known as Siti K, is also joining the existing ensemble which
includes Chua Enlai, Alaric Tay, Judee Tan and Suhaimi Yusof.
The producers of The Noose had approached Chong to see if she would
be available for Season 7, she says, and asked if she could meet
with them to discuss a possible return.
As she had wanted to make a movie based on the character of Lulu
“for a very long time”, she agreed to the meeting as it “would be a
very good opportunity” to ask for the character’s licence rights to
work on this project.
That meeting went well and “we managed to work something out”, she
says.
Which means that she will be working on a movie centered on Lulu
“sometime later this year”, she adds.
“Actually, I wanted to do a movie about Barbarella at first, but
it’s going to be about Lulu, because that is apparently what my
fans want to see.
“I asked my followers on Instagram and Twitter which movie they
would want to see between the two characters and more than 80 per
cent chose Lulu. I guess the issues surrounding the Chinese
national are more pertinent now than the SPG?” she says with a
laugh, referring to the acronym for sarong party girl, slang for a
local girl who exclusively dates Caucasian men.
As for the upcoming season of The Noose, she will be writing more
and also be credited as a writer.
She says: “I did say before that I will return to act in front of
the camera only if I can do more creative stuff and be part of the
collaborative process more. This arrangement allows me to do just
that, so it’s great.”
Already, she has “many ideas” for her characters and has begun
writing.
“The trick is to keep them current so I’m pacing myself because
these new episodes air only in April,” she says.
University student and fan of The Noose, Ms Lorraine Chen, 22, is
delighted at the prospect of seeing Chong’s performance in the show
again.
She says: “I think the show was not the same without Michelle
Chong. Her characters are the best in the whole show and even
though the show keeps adding new characters, they’re not as funny
as Barbarella or Leticia.”
The Noose Season 7 airs on Channel 5 on April 1 at
8.30pm.
ST
yeah!!!!
