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Benny Chia hosts city fest launch atop the fringe

Well, he can finally relax. After 10 months of lead-up and planning, the City Festival is under way and Fringe Club director Benny Chia Chun-heng can grab a ticket, sit back and enjoy the entertainment.

'It's good to be able to relax finally,' said a jovial Chia amid the sound of drums on the roof of the Fringe at a party to launch the two-week festival. About 300 people attended, including Philip Soden from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and the one-man tour de force Rick Lau.

Lau, the brilliantly gifted Australian comedian from Sydney, is back at the City Festival for the fourth time by popular request, this time staging Men in Love, which finished yesterday.

'He's fantastic, he has quite a following in Hong Kong,' said another guest, RTHK Radio 3's Phil Whelan.

Others present included Wailee Chow, chairman of the board of directors for the Fringe Club.

There was also a lawyer from Transylvania. Yes, it does exist.

And historian Dan Waters, in his mid-80s and a Hong Kong resident for the past 52 years, was half of one of three mixed couples talking at a festival seminar yesterday on One Couple, Two Cultures.

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