Earl Thompson is King of Carnival in Minshall design

SASHA HARRINANAN

The joy in Peter Minshall's voice was unmistakeable as he spoke about Earl Thompson successfully embodying his costume – Death and the Maiden, The Fancy King Sailor plays Pegasus – to become the 2018 King of Carnival.

"The prelims (including the winds), were a useful learning tool for both him and myself. Just as any great actor must get into and be the part, so too any great mas man or mas woman has to be one with that which he or she is playing. It could be Shakespeare on the one hand or it could be Pegasus...on the other but you must be one with it! And I must congratulate Mr Thompson. He pulled it off, magnificently!" Minshall declared happily.

The finals of the King and Queen of Carnival competition took place during Dimanche Gras at the Queen's Park Savannah, Port of Spain on Sunday evening.

Minshall's design is from the presentation, The Eyes of God, a collaboration between his band, The Callaloo Company and Exodus Steel Orchestra.

Sans wheels, the flying horse costume relied on Thompson's skill and Minshall's training to ensure its fabric wings stayed unfurled so the judges could get a proper view of the wings – hand-sewn pieces of silk portraying a masquerader on one and a skeleton on the other.

Speaking with Newsday mere hours after Thompson's win – announced at about 1.45 am yesterday – Minshall said, "I had to pull him back from the temptation of going on stage as a rocking horse because it is secondary that it rocks. Pegasus must glide and last night (Sunday) Mr Thompson achieved that."

Newsday also spoke with Thompson who, having been with the Callaloo Company for close to 27 years, is all about the mas, not the money or the title.

"I was in the top five many a time but this is my first time being crowned king. I don't want to feel that I've reached but I don't think I have to defend anything. I do this every year and I do it because of the love of the art and I'm a carnivalist. I will continue to be one."

One of Minshall's designs most recently won King of Carnival in 2016, when Jha-Whan Thomas, walking on stilts, portrayed The Dying Swan, Ras Nijinsky In Drag As Pavlova.'