Some flock to his performances en masse. The others make scathing judgments about him. But maybe this is exactly the secret of Mario Barth's success. Or is it his authenticity, as the comedian himself surmises, now that he's turning 50?
Everything could have gone differently for Mario Barth. Instead of standing on stage in front of tens of thousands of people as Germany's most successful comedian, today he could also install telephone systems. At least he was "super good" at it, he says. More on why he ended up taking a different path later. He will be 50 this Tuesday. What is on his mind?
Mario Barth is sitting in a hotel room in Wetzlar, Hesse. The night before he played the first show of his new tour in front of 3700 fans. His voice sounds a little hoarse.
How was it? "Really excellent," says Barth. The show was sold out, as was the next one. And that, although you didn't know at all how everything would work with Corona. Barth's PR manager had also previously emphasized how extremely well ticket sales were going at a time when organizers complained that they weren't getting rid of any tickets. 100,000 tickets have already been sold for his tour, says Barth. "For a program that people don't know about."
That is not completly correct. With Mario Barth you pretty much know what you're getting. In the six previous live programs, almost everything revolved around the supposedly never-ending misunderstanding between man and woman. For this, Barth ("You're right, I'm in peace") goes deep into the cliché box: women can't park, are constantly offended and like to go shopping. Men prefer to sit on the couch, are interested in cars and are terrorized by women.
Barth tells all of this from the first-person perspective, acting as the upper macho, the simply knitted guy who simply tells anecdotes from everyday life with his girlfriend. On stage, he leaves no doubt that this is the general state of affairs in German man-woman relationships: "You know? You know."
The successes that Barth has achieved with this are impressive. Since 2008 he has been in the Guinness Book of Records as the live comedian with the most viewers. At that time, 70,000 people flocked to the Berlin Olympic Stadium. In 2014, he set a new record with more than 116,000 viewers: the largest audience for a comedian in 24 hours. Almost nine million people have seen his stage shows live. He won the German Comedy Award eleven times.
For his critics, on the other hand, Barth is a red rag. Some have written scathing judgments about him throughout his career. His humor has regular table level, without jokes, without punchlines, ordinary.
Dieter Nuhr once said to him: Don't look for your audience, your audience will find you, says Barth. That's what happened to him. "If you go to AC/DC expecting a harp, then there's nothing wrong with AC/DC. Then you're in the wrong place." He has no problem with the fact that there are people who don't find him funny. "That's the beauty of our country, you can choose where you go."
But it's not true that he's not funny. If someone attests him "misogynist jokes," he can't accept that either. "I have more female fans than male ones. Anyone who accuses me of misogynist jokes is assuming that women are too stupid to recognize misogyny."
When asked how he explains his success, Barth replies that he is not that successful. He just sold nine million tickets. If you consider that 84 million people live in Germany, he still has work to do. "Just think how many weren't there." But then he has an explanation: "Authenticity," he says. "What people just like is that I get on stage and say what I think." Just like here, Barth also uses Berlin in his performances, local color is an important part of his program.
The comedian is proud of his origins, he emphasizes that again and again. He was born in Berlin in 1972 and grew up with five siblings in "simple circumstances" in Kreuzberg and Neukölln. He attended a Catholic private school and did an apprenticeship as a communications electronics technician at Siemens, working in telephone technology. "Telephone was my job, that's where I thrived," he says. Because an "idiot" from the new boss put him in the traffic light technology, he quit. Ampel just didn't interest him.
But what has always suited him: entertaining people. He was a nuisance at school because people laughed then. That's when he realized: "You're suddenly someone, you're someone." As a teenager, he saw young Michael Mittermeier on TV. He was "fast", he was "funny", that impressed him. He knew: "Actually, that's what I want." Eventually he started taking comedy workshops. He performed on small stages where he tested his jokes and performances were sometimes attended by as few as six people.
And then there was this sound check on a stage in Hamburg. But he played a different number than usual: he told the true story of his girlfriend. He is said to have been with her for more than 20 years, but fans have never seen her, Barth consistently keeps her away from the public. In any case, before the drive there, the girlfriend worried that there would be no parking space. Everyone present laughed their heads off at the way he talked, says Barth. That's when he noticed how well everyday comedy works. That people recognize themselves in it.
So now 50. Mario Barth says that his perspective on life changes as he gets older. And the desire to stand for something grows. He talks about wanting to do even more for children next year. Barth has been involved with the Berlin children's aid project Arche for years.
Oh yes, Barth is also planning a cookbook. Everyone writes cookbooks, he says. But he really likes to cook. In the social networks, fans would have asked: What are you eating? He is a fan of Königsberger meatballs and eggs in mustard sauce. He also likes to make a prime rib with truffle puree. "Of course you can also omit the truffle puree."
