Regional laughter: Cheerful Company takes their viral vibe to the BVI

Cherisse Moe

When scrolling so­cial me­dia, a video from Cheer­ful Com­pa­ny is hard to skip. Avril’s in­fec­tious laugh­ter, KP’s fa­cial ex­pres­sions and Shinzy’s calm hu­mour draw you right in. These women have been pro­vid­ing joy and com­e­dy to the en­tire Caribbean through our screens since 2024—and they’re just get­ting start­ed.

Re­cent­ly, things took a pos­i­tive turn for the pop­u­lar trio—Avril Car­ring­ton, Keisha Punter, and Shanelle Fe­lix—as they de­buted their unique en­ter­tain­ment in the British Vir­gin Is­lands (BVI). The gig came about in the best way: word of mouth. Af­ter they host­ed an awards show back home, two women were so im­pressed by the group that they shared their ex­pe­ri­ence with hosts in the BVI. One ex­cit­ed con­ver­sa­tion led to an­oth­er and sud­den­ly the trip was on.

By the time they land­ed, their rep­u­ta­tion had al­ready made the flight.

“One of my most mem­o­rable mo­ments was walk­ing through the streets when a la­dy shout­ed ‘Shinzy!’ and hur­ried out of her car,” Avril re­calls.

“She was scream­ing our names and hug­ging us… she ex­pressed how much she loves us and was look­ing for­ward to see­ing us.” Shanelle was just as moved by the re­cep­tion, telling WE, “the peo­ple were warm and so hap­py to see us. The love was def­i­nite­ly felt.”

The much-an­tic­i­pat­ed event, held in cel­e­bra­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day, was a hit, with con­ga lines, so­ca mu­sic, scav­enger hunts and prizes keep­ing the en­er­gy high. Every­one had a ball. “There was this one ac­tiv­i­ty where in­struc­tions were placed un­der ta­bles and every­one got op­por­tu­ni­ties to go around com­pli­ment­ing each oth­er and shar­ing hugs and smiles,” Avril, 47, re­calls. And Keisha loved every minute of the wild­ness. “Halfway through, I paused, looked around and thought to my­self, ‘wow, we are re­al­ly do­ing this.’ It felt so sur­re­al see­ing every­thing come to­geth­er and I wasn’t even anx­ious in the mo­ment. I felt gen­uine­ly proud of us and how far we’ve come as a team.”

That kind of love shows how fast home­grown con­tent can spread right across the re­gion.

What peo­ple see on­line is on­ly part of it, though. While Cheer­ful Com­pa­ny be­came a house­hold name al­most overnight, there is plen­ty that the pub­lic doesn’t see. For starters, their “day jobs” look very dif­fer­ent from the light­heart­ed games peo­ple know them for. Avril and Keisha are Po­lice Of­fi­cers, while Shanelle works as a Clerk in the Pub­lic Ser­vice. There are al­so per­son­al de­tails that may catch fans off guard. Shanelle says, “view­ers may be sur­prised to learn that I am not a Trinida­di­an by birth. I was born in the US, but I grew up in Trinidad from a young age.” Avril, the loud­est of them all, shares that “many times when I stand in an open fo­rum to ad­dress an au­di­ence, I ex­pe­ri­ence se­ri­ous but­ter­flies be­fore I even­tu­al­ly catch my com­po­sure.”

Keisha, 40, who strug­gles with so­cial anx­i­ety, tells us, “It’s some­thing I’ve been work­ing on, but if it were left up to me, I’ll stay at home 24/7.”

Ever won­der how they come up with their many games? The women say it’s a team ef­fort, with each per­son bring­ing some­thing to the ta­ble. They might see a con­cept on­line and put a Tri­ni spin on it, or build a chal­lenge from scratch, but they nev­er share the de­tails with each oth­er un­til the cam­era is ac­tu­al­ly rolling. “What you see is the re­al deal,” Shanelle, 36, says.

Main­tain­ing that en­er­gy isn’t al­ways as easy as it looks. Cre­ative clash­es hap­pen from time to time. “How we mend things am­i­ca­bly? Hm­mm, lol,” Keisha jokes. “Some­times we han­dle it ma­ture­ly, apol­o­gis­ing and putting the friend­ship first. Avril doesn’t ar­gue, but Shinzy and I? Yeah, we be go­ing at it and Avril has to step in as the me­di­a­tor. But we don’t stay mad for long, we’ll go qui­et for hours, then ran­dom­ly video call each oth­er or share a fun­ny Tik­Tok video and end up laugh­ing like noth­ing even hap­pened.”

When asked if their grow­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty has changed how their fam­i­lies and friends treat them, Avril was quick to point out her moth­er’s re­ac­tion.

“My mom, she is so proud of me. She would al­ways say, ‘Avril, I am so proud of you, con­tin­ue do­ing what you’re do­ing.’”

That sup­port, Avril adds, is part of what keeps them ground­ed. “We still have our long-term friends, the ones we can sit in the liv­ing room with and drink ‘John­ny Punch’ and talk our talk. It’s an in­side joke,” she adds with a laugh.

Now, the trio is fo­cused on the fu­ture. “With God as our pi­lot,” Shanelle says, “we look for­ward to see­ing where He takes us next.”

If the BVI is any­thing to go by, they don’t even need to an­nounce their ar­rival.