Demetri Martin Articles/Reviews

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main...30/btdem30.xml

Edinburgh reports: it's about risks - and chicks
(Filed: 30/07/2005)
American comic Demetri Martin, who won the 2003 Perrier award, recalls his first visit to the Fringe

I came to Edinburgh for the first time in 2003. Going into the festival, I felt ready. But looking back, it's clear I had no idea. A couple of weeks before hitting the Fringe, I learnt the correct pronunciation of the city's name. That seemed like a good start. After preparing some last-minute things (jokes, props, clothes), packing, and not cleaning my apartment, I left for Scotland.

Demetri Martin: 'The Fringe embodies everything I love about comedy'

My first night in Edinburgh featured dinner with Jimmy Carr. We sat in an Italian restaurant and talked about our shows. Engrossed and speculative, our meeting must have glowed like some sort of gay, international comedy date (jokes, clothes). Jimmy was kind enough to help with some requisite vocabulary changes (ie "pants" to "trousers", "American" to "fat", etc.). I learnt that "acclimate" is not a word, but "acclimatise" is. Interesting. It seemed I didn't even know the correct word for the process of learning the correct word. Perfect. I sensed that my show might go "tits up" which, sadly, does not mean what I wish it did.

The first great thing I discovered in Edinburgh was a candy bar, the Drifter bar. Delicious. I told my new friends how great their "candy is over here". I was told that my candy taste was "bad" and common. Fair enough. I mean, I am from New Jersey (incidentally, in 2004 I discovered Hob Nobs. The ones with chocolate on them. Excellent. And, I'm told, more respectable).

Now, before the festival even started, my agent Hannah warned me that I should expect 20 or 30 people to show up each night to my 120-seat venue. Then, if I received some good reviews, the numbers would increase as the festival unfolded. Almost like a rash. On the first night 80 people came to my first show. I remember thinking, "Nice. This is going to be easy. It's just like back home, except there is less air conditioning and more old people. I will acclimatise quicker than I thought."



The second night 100 people showed up. Now, with more confidence, I did my little show - and bombed. The people in that room that night were very quiet. (Imagine a soundproof room. Now add deaf people. Now add a guy trying to be funny with a megaphone.) Fringe teaches you things. I learnt a lot that night: about culture, timing, and sweat gland locations I never knew I had.

So, after two nights I had one good show and one bomb. Clearly the month was going to be long. Hannah discussed ways to tweak my show. Most of them involved getting my hair out of my eyes. I got some gel. Soon my show was selling out. The crowds liked me more and I them.

Then the reviews started to come. What a strange experience. American comedians develop without the pleasure of reviews. We have very few, if any, stand-up reviewers. So it's quite odd to go to a place where no one knows you but suddenly people are writing things about you. I'd never read things like that before. It was even stranger because I tried to read the papers with the appropriate accent in my head. But I'm not good at accents, so it seemed like these people with bad Scottish and English accents had a lot of opinions about comedy.

Then the interviews started to come. I've never liked posing for photos, but I enjoy speaking with people near a tape recorder, so press was a mixed bag for me. More Drifter bars, more shows. Now I was selling out. The crowds seemed to be with me. As I neared the middle of my run, I hit the wall that you hit in your first year. It's when you've done 11 or 12 shows and you're still not halfway finished. I was already quite tired. I think what made things worse was that I had purchased an old bicycle when I arrived and decided to ride it everywhere (from my flat in New Town to my venue, to late-night shows, to pubs, all of which managed to be uphill all the time. Apparently, the city was modelled after a rare MC Escher woodcut of comedians and alcoholics climbing an uphill maze. Quite beautiful).

Once you reach the midpoint of the festival everything suddenly speeds up. It's like a time machine that runs on beer and jokes and other beer. It felt as if one moment I was doing my first tech rehearsal and then suddenly I was at the Perrier party. Then, the next I was back in my apartment in New York - where it was still messy (jokes, props, clothes, trophy).

Without question the greatest part of my first Fringe was spending time with new friends. At home, most of my friends are comedians. And, to my delight, I found a whole new, parallel cadre of idiots on the other side of the ocean. David O'Doherty (Ireland), Daniel Kitson (England), Flight of the Conchords (New Zealand) and Jimmy Carr (mansion) made the Fringe more about being off-stage than on.

Making it through a month of shows for the first time is intense and amazing. I don't mean to exaggerate. It's not combat or anything. But it is a boot camp of sorts. And when you've done it, you come to respect anyone else who's done it too, no matter their race, creed, or comedic ability.

Fringe is a funny name for it. It makes the festival sound like a haircut. And in some ways it is like one: it's risky, it involves edges, and if it starts to go wrong you can't leave or you will end up looking even worse. In other ways it is not. For example, I never got a haircut that made me tired and exhilarated and inspired and humbled. Maybe I just don't have the right barber.

I plan to return to the Fringe as many times as I can, because it embodies everything I love about comedy. It's a place where you must create new things, constantly take risks and dare to fail. Also, there are English chicks there. And they are great (jokes, props, clothes).



Demetri Martin is at the George Square Theatre from Aug 17. Tickets: 0131 226 7207.

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On both previous visits to Edinburgh, Demetri Martin's shows have been two parts confessional to one part comedy. 2003's Perrier- winning If I discussed the New Yorker's near-autistic obsession with palindromes and self-help systems. Last year, Spiral Bound took us on a fantastic voyage through the jottings in his notebook. Here was a comedian who, unusually, had a concept and really committed to it. So it's frustrating that Martin's current set, These Are Jokes, has no such conceit. It's just joke after joke - although many of them are sublime.

Ostensibly, the show divides into sections in which Martin's array of one-liners are accompanied by guitar, glockenspiel or doodles on a flip-chart. His quirky music creates just the right context for these playful quips, which turn the world ever so slightly askew. ("The digital camera enables us to reminisce immediately. 'Look at us. We were so young!'") His illustrations are more hit and miss - a handful provide visual punchlines to verbal set-ups, but too many merely reiterate what Martin has already told us in words. In any event, the difference between these sections of the show is essentially cosmetic. Tunes and pictures become random means of embroidering what might otherwise seem a rather relentless comedy litany.
Mind you, the quality of the jokes also helps keep relentlessness at bay. Martin's trademark nerdy compulsions are in evidence in the forensic way his one-liners explore language and rhetoric. In a clothes shop, a sales assistant tells him, "If you need anything, I'm Jill." To which Martin responds, "I never met a woman before with a conditional identity." He's great at nailing the idiosyncrasy of certain words. Alphabet "is like a preview: these are some of the letters you will be encountering in me". Regards are something you can send but never give.

This is cerebral and chilled out, if completely arbitrary, comedy.

· Until Monday. Box office: 0131-662 8740.

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http://www.theage.com.au/news/arts-r...344247636.html

New York jokester arrives for a spot of hotel pool volleyball - and some shows.






GenreComedyLocationMelbourne Town HallAddress90-130 Swanston Street, MelbourneDate13 April 2006 to 7 May 2006Tickets$31/$25 concessionPhone Bookings1300 660 013Online Bookingswww.ticketmaster.com.auDetailsTue-Sat 9.45pm, Sun 8.45pmLocationThe Victoria HotelAddress215 Little Collins St, MelbourneDate28 April 2006 to 6 May 2006Tickets$27.50/$22.50 concessionPhone Bookings(03) 9669 0000Online Bookingswww.victoriahotel.com.auDetails11.30pm
Preview

Meanings are unstable in the heady world of comedy, Coco Pops and competitive aqua sports.

(Note: the following was written in an American accent)

AM in a hotel room. In just a few days I've made it as messy as my tiny apartment back in New York. I sit among clothes, instruments, bags, receipts, Boggle game-pieces, CDs, markers, books and dying flowers. And there are other things not on the coffee table. My room is like the opposite of a chick magnet's bachelor pad.

I have eaten many eggs, Kit Kats and souvlakis since my arrival, so I'm feeling quite full. I'm also feeling happy (segue based on idea of "feeling") to be back in Melbourne for the festival.

I have 500 words to discuss recollections of my first Melbourne Comedy Festival, which took place one year and one month ago. I have already used 146, no - 149, no - 151...

OK, let me get to the rest.

To illustrate my first Melbourne festival, I've defined a few key terms below and provided helpful sample sentences.

Jet lag: a thing that makes you eat Coco Pops at strange times.

Coco Pops: things which, when eaten at strange times, give you diarrhoea.

Tram: a thing that almost hits you.

Hi Fi Club: a place where people go late at night to see comedy or to dance or to kiss somebody, but usually end up just seeing comedy. ("The bouncers at the Hi Fi Club are not very polite," wrote the comedian in his diary of rage.)

Floor: a thing your face almost hits if you spend too much time at the Hi Fi when you have jet lag and not enough Coco Pops.

Bouncer: see "tram".

Town Hall: a place that is normally governmental and which, during the festival, becomes less governed and more mental.

Word play: a way to arrange words that is funny, but not "ha ha" funny. (see "Town Hall" definition)

Comedian: a person who doesn't sleep much or have a real job. ("I am not an idiot. I am a comedian.")

Audience: a group of people who look at a comedian for a little while and can tolerate heat, rain, wind, flyer-givers, standing, waiting and non-sequiturs. ("The audience gave the comedian a sitting ovation.")

Smell: what your clothes do a few weeks into the festival because you are too lazy to wash them.

New clothes: what you buy a few weeks into the festival in order to avoid doing laundry.

Hotel pool volleyball: an international sport played by comedians at the 2005 Melbourne International Comedy Festival and the most important competition of the month. ("I played a lot of hotel pool volleyball last year at the festival.")

Jokes: collections of words that enable you to go from New York to Melbourne and avoid your messy apartment a little while longer.

Thanks: what you say to those who go to your shows. ("Thanks, everyone. I like that I get to be in a place where comedy, snacks and hotel pool volleyball get the respect they deserve.")

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http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/June06/windows096603.php

Demetri Martin has signed a deal to star in Microsoft’s new marketing campaign.

The New York comic, who is a regular on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, will promote the upcoming Windows Vista operating, according to trade publication The Hollywood Reporter.

Microsoft have made no comment on the story, so the financial terms could not be confirmed.

The report said Martin would be ‘the face of a massive multi-pronged campaign’ for the software before it goes on sale next year. This would include a series of ten video ‘webisodes’ hosted on the company’s MSN portal.

Microsoft will reportedly also sponsor Martin’s 25-date American stand-up tour, These Are Jokes, this autumn, which follow his appearances at the Edinburgh Fringe.

The comic has also struck a deal with the Comedy Central network to make a one-off prime-time special, set to air early next year. And his first CD, These Are Jokes, is due out in September.