Natasia Demetriou – comedy's most nervous standup?
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Version 0 of 1. Within the opening minutes of her solo comedy show You’ll Never Have All of Me, Natasia Demetriou has lavished kisses on the first few rows, argued that we should be prepared to share the blame with her if the material doesn’t go well, and deliberately flashed her knickers. For most of the subsequent hour, she inhabits characters who share some of that honest panic. In between, she solicits our suggestions for improvisations while pawing her own face as though trying to wipe it off her skull. Meeting Demetriou later in the office upstairs at the Invisible Dot venue in north London, I congratulate her on this monstrous elevation of nerves into an art form. After all, no one could really be that jittery and still set foot on stage. Could they? “It’s all real,” she says, mock-glumly. “Before the show tonight, I couldn’t move my arms and legs. I was basically in a coma. I have to make a joke out of it because otherwise the show would be me standing there whimpering.” It wasn’t such a problem when she was with the other members of the sketch group Oyster Eyes, whom she met while studying acting at Leeds University. “That was still nerve-racking, but at least if a line didn’t work, you knew someone was going to come in with something else.” She starts berating herself for her career choices. “It’s embarrassing to say you want to be a comedian. Admitting that you want attention and you think you’re such a laugh. It’s like, ‘Well, you’re a dickhead.’” Hysteria surrounding the Edinburgh fringe, where she took the show this year, only exacerbates her usual state. “I’ve got friends who are nurses and teachers. They’re making a difference. I’m like, ‘Sorry I’m so stressed – I’m working on a character and my wig hasn’t arrived.’ And they’re like, ‘I just cut someone’s bowel open today.’” I really hope she’s referring to the nurses, not the teachers. The standup who hates doing standup could easily be a Demetriou character. She would fit in nicely alongside the Scottish martial arts instructor forced to specialise in “Asian-style kicking and punching” after being banned from teaching karate. Or the dreamy sex expert inspired by the time Demetriou swiped right on Tinder. “I only use Tinder to have horrible conversations with people,” she insists. “I accidentally liked this man on there and he sent me some really horrendous things. I was like, ‘I’m gonna be even more horrendous.’ I was by myself, having the time of my life. Then I felt slightly sick.” Her most infectiously funny creation is the galumphing entrepreneur Boulla, recently heard on Fresh from the Fringe on Radio 4. She appears in the new show with an imperfect grasp of English (“Monday! Tuesday! January!”) and a radical business proposal (pizzas in nightclubs) for which she is seeking an investment of £16. “She came from my stupid – my lovely – Greek cousins, who are always coming up with business ideas.” Putting the show together, she worried about a lack of variety. “I realised I didn’t have any characters who weren’t doing ridiculous things in ridiculous voices. I wanted one who was quiet and stood still.” Out of this came a flash of genius: the timid villager attempting to perform standup while clutching a baby to her shoulder. Laughter is discouraged since it might wake the child. Audience members are asked to raise their hands instead to signify amusement. Like the recent Wembley Previews by Sheeps, You’ll Never Have All of Me is a show about putting on a show. A song performed with Mae Martin, the Canadian standup and fellow Dot regular, revolves around Demetriou convincing herself that she can get through the evening. It also features a cheesy supportive interjection from her brother, Jamie, whose credits include a hit show of his own (People Day), several Channel 4 Comedy Blaps and, as his sister points out on stage, “a line in Rev”. He’s not the only family member incorporated in the show. There are childhood snaps, pictures of her dog and a film of her father attempting unsuccessfully to tell a joke; the evening ends with her parents’ phone number projected on the screen. “These are the things I’m surrounded by. ‘Do I wanna walk any further than what’s in my room? Nah. I’ll do some comedy about my dog.’” This complacent image is belied by the level of detail in the new show, and in her work as one half (with Ellie White) of the Sexy American Girls Family, who appeared in Edinburgh in the Invisible Dot Circus. So does Demetriou really have to do it if she finds it all so distressing? “I ask myself that a lot. Everyone who does comedy at my level thinks the same thing: ‘What am I doing with my life?’” She calls out to Martin, who is sitting quietly at the other side of the room: “Am I right, Mae?” “Big time,” comes the doleful reply. She turns back to me. “But it’s that thing of, ‘Oh, I’ll give it a couple more years.’ I’ll force myself to get out of bed earlier and write something amazing. Can you make that the last line? ‘I’ll write something amazing.’” • You’ll Never Have All of Me is at the Invisible Dot until 25 October. 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