‘I was strange’: How this comedian’s defence mechanism became a lucrative career

Demi Adejuyigbe is one of the US’ most acclaimed young comic talents but, as he explains on a Zoom call from Los Angeles with his cat, Leo, making people laugh was initially more of a “defence mechanism” than a career path.

Born in London to Nigerian parents, Adejuyigbe moved to Dallas, Texas, when he was five years old and soon found he had a knack for disarming humour. “I was one of very few black kids in my school and I was very small,” he says. “I was strange and didn’t feel like I fit in, so the ability to make other people laugh, and to make fun of myself before others could, felt like a good tool to have.”

London-born US comic Demi Adejuyigbe.

The 32-year-old grew up on The Simpsons, developing a love of parody songs, while Late Night with Conan O’Brien stoked his interest in sketch comedy.

After a summer teaching himself the After Effects video editing software from YouTube tutorials he started making short comic films, achieving virality on the now-defunct Vine platform. Among his hits were an alternative theme song for TV show Succession, a Will Smith-style rap summarising the film Arrival and – one of his favourite creations – an imagining of a heartsick Lana Del Rey pining for animated mouse Stuart Little.

He’s now combined these different strands of his career into his live show, Demi Adejuyigbe Is Going to Do One (1) Backflip, which has already earned him a best-newcomer nomination at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It features videos, songs, low-pressure audience interaction and even mock phone calls from Barack Obama.

Adejuyigbe says he sought to create a show more multifaceted than traditional club comedy. “To me, stand-up always feels like a play, where it’s not very interactive and it’s just ‘here are my jokes’,” he says.

“I think it’s more exciting when it’s built on the element of surprise and you feel like you’re in this environment where anything can happen. It’s very fun to play with different elements of comedy and have this theatrical kind of adventure.”

Demi Adejuyigbe in full flight – he is a very physical performer. Credit:

You’ll have to watch the show to see if he performs the titular flip but Adejuyigbe says that tension gives the show its narrative backbone.

“I have a very specific reason why I’m trying to do this singular backflip, and there is this Waiting for Godot sort of thing where I’m hoping that these people show up, and they don’t. Then it becomes me introspectively asking the question of why I’ve chosen to be a performer at all.”

If that sounds overly complex, fear not. “It is the kind of show where you can come in knowing nothing about it and just enjoy the bits. But you can also be a fan of mine and see a through line in the way I perform.”

Rather than touring endlessly, Adejuyigbe has pursued online passion projects like a podcast that recaps every episode of Gilmore Girls, and making mash-ups of songs.

“The idea of getting up [on stage] every night, or even multiple times a night, is a very old-school mentality. I do think it’s important to perform a lot because that’s the only way to figure out exactly what the audience likes.

“But I also think it is not insane to gain a greater understanding of what the audience wants through mediums outside of performing live. The more that you’ve built up your audience, the less that you have to get up and out there.”

The hybrid approach has paid off, with Adejuyigbe having picked up writing gigs for late-night television (The Late Late Show with James Corden) and sitcoms, most notably The Good Place.

“I love writing for other people’s voices because it helps me understand more about what my voice is,” he says.

“That type of writing is like doing a puzzle; there are all these rules and barriers but if you can create really well within that, it feels a lot more satisfying.”

Worried he would jinx the opportunity to work with one of his comedy heroes, in The Good Place creator Mike Schur, he didn’t ask any questions about the show before he turned up in the writers’ room and went in not knowing about that reveal at the end of season one.

“On the first day I saw a lot of them talking and [Schur] said, ‘You’re probably very confused because I haven’t told you anything; come into my office.’ He told me all about the show and the big twist at the end and I thought: ‘Ah, so that’s the box I’m creating in.’ The whole thing was very fun.”

Demi Adejyuigbe Is Going to Do One (1) Backflip is at the Comedy Store, Sydney, on June 6 and at Comedy Republic, Melbourne, on June 20-21.

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