US comedian Demetri Martin says what he really thinks about the Barry Award ahead of his return

Deadpan US comedian Demetri Martin has been doing a whole lot of killing on stage and off, and now he’s ready to do it in Melbourne.

Demetri Martin has a snail problem.
The 45-year-old US comedian had a big win with his recent Netflix special Overthinker and you better believe he is overthinking his way out of a shelled gastropod plague in his backyard.

“The last thing I over-thought was how to get rid of snails. We have a small garden with succulents. I learned recently that the snails were devouring the succulents. I can safely say I have over-thought my strategy,” Martin says.

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Demetri Martin is set to perform in Melbourne in June.

“Am I killing them? Should I just be relocating them? My son is five and I don’t know whether he should see this snail genocide. My wife and I have had discussions every morning. When I go out there my son knows what I’m up to,” he laughs, worried his offspring is seeing the deadpan comic deadpanning the green, guzzling gremlins.

“In the last few days there’s been a whole extermination process. There’s a defiance with snails. Man, our plants look terrible, they look like Swiss cheese. We’ve been counting and we’re up to 177, we’ve removed 177 of them in four days.”

Martin enjoys the minutiae of modern life, the tricky triumphs and micro-tragedies.

His eccentric style of comedy (which includes Leunig-meets-Benny-Montero cartoons and him playing a guitar) made him Martin a big star here in 2006 when he won the Barry Award at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for Dr Earnest Parrot Presents Demetri Martin.

He was previously a writer for Late Night with Conan O’Brien, a regular on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and has written books plus fiction for The New Yorker, Esquire and The New York Times Magazine.

“The Barry Award’s gone now, it’s a relic just like the Perrier,” he says, weighing in on the recent news Barry Humphries had his name dumped.

Sidenote: The Perrier Award was the top gong at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival; it’s now known as the Edinburgh Comedy Award.

Martin also won the Perrier in 2003.

“Things have to change, usually there’s a pretty good reason for a change like this. It sounds like he (Humphries) said some pretty offensive things. Ironically, unless you call it a really catchy name it may not take off. People need to call it a really catchy name. I think The Mickey is fun and catchy.”

It’s now called the Melbourne International Comedy Festival award, or “MICFA”. Some are already calling it “The Mickey.”

“It’s so easy to offend people these days in ways you can never imagine. I’m still low on the edgy comedian level. Sometimes I’ll get two messages about a joke and go ‘Wow, that is offensive? OK’,” he says sarcastically.

It’s pleasing to hear he hasn’t over-thought his way out of bringing the zinging.

In his Netflix special Overthinker, Martin had a bright idea.

“I wanted to do something where I presented a stand-up comedy special with a voiceover,” he says.

In practice, Martin commentates setups and jokes as they play out, taking us behind the curtain and showing us how he finessed bits until they were watertight.

“That was my first attempt at that, I was happy I was able to pull it off,” he says.

“In 2006 I did my first stand-up special and that had some animation and drawings. Now I figure I wanted to play with the form a little more, considering there’s so much comedy to be streamed now. Audiences are more savvy.”

He has another project that looks like it’ll be green-lit, although he won’t give us the name. “The way it works now is you don’t sell a pilot, you sell a season. I’m in the middle of all that. It’s a sci-fi, narrative-based thing and I think it’s gonna (get funded).”

Martin was last here in 2011. Since then he got married, bought a house, had two kids.
Life stuff.

His wife thinks he’s funny, that helps. One of his life partner’s favourite lines is: “By simply adding a ponytail, a man can remove up to all of his credibility.”

When I recite the line he immediately beams in that demurely confident way.

“That’s a favourite joke of my wife.

“Last time I was in Australia it felt like summer camp. I was hanging out with Ross Noble, Danny Bhoy, David O’Doherty, Daniel Kitson, all lovely guys. And I remember going to this restaurant called Pie Face,” he says, perhaps flattering the pastry-heavy franchise.

“I remember after the show getting the festival pack, the snack pack, I‘d do a show then grab a pie; living the life.”

Comedian Demetri Martin returns to Melbourne for the first time in eight years, keen to visit Pie Face again.

Martin is bringing all new material on his 70 minute Wandering Mind show.
“If anyone has seen my stuff on the internet, they won’t have seen any of this. There are a lot of jokes, some stories, I play a bit of music, I have some drawings, I’m still experimenting and trying to find different ways to present jokes. The fun part about this tour is I’m doggedly writing material, trying to keep my head in the game.
“The 14 hour flight out is a long one so I’ll be writing out as many jokes by hand,” he says, adding “At least 14 jokes.”

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SEE DEMETRI MARTIN

The Aurora Centre, Christchurch, May 31

Auckland Town Hall, June 1

Opera House, Wellington, June 3

Adelaide Town Hall, June 4

Home of the Arts, Gold Coast, June 6

Hamer Hall, the Arts Centre, June 7

Enmore Theatre, Sydney, June 8

Canberra Theatre Centre, June 10

Astor Theatre, Perth, June 12

frontiercomedy.com/demetrimartin