In the Bafta-winning Stath Lets Flats, Jamie Demetriou unleashed a trail of comedy carnage. Here, he talks to Alex Moshakis about body contortions, dealing with ‘feeling thick’ and finding inspiration in the chaotic antics of his Cypriot family
“A few times a day, yes,” he says. “Which is a bit of psychological heavy lifting.” Demetriou’s father was born in a small village in Cyprus and migrated to England alone, aged 11. He arrived without shoes, was briefly homeless, and later owned a north London café, where his son sometimes joined him. “Characters filled our lives,” Demetriou recalls. “Going to work with him at 6am to give tea to a guy who wore trousers and braces and nothing else – that’s surreal.
‘Every character I play has a glazed look in their eyes’: in Stath Lets Flats with his sister Natasia.“She’s so good with him,” he says. “But she’s just… You know, it’s funny. Because of the mad stories about my dad, he’s always in the spotlight. But my mum, my mum is just a vehicle for love.” He sighs, then begins to cry gently. “Sorry,” he says. “God. Well, there you go, that was the moment.” After a pause he goes on, “She’s just incredibly selfless.
You could be forgiven for thinking of Stath as a proxy for Demetriou’s father. Of Stath’s physical presence, Demetriou says, “Every time he entered shot, I wanted it to be like someone had thrown a big bag of bones into the room.” In everything he creates, Demetriou is “heavily reliant” on slapstick. “I learned from doing live shows that I could use physicality to bandage moments that weren’t working very well,” he says.
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