Cem Yilmaz: Diamond Elite Platinum Plus

Lately, Turkey has been going through very hard periods of time regarding economics, politics and social peace and acceptance at the top of the worldwide pandemic. Most professionals would refuse to perform under these circumstances because Turkish society has been experiencing such a breakdown over politics at every aspect of life and suffering polarization and hate. It is definitely not easy to make such people laugh under these conditions for sure. I am lucky that I live in the US so I did not miss the greatness of this show. Some Turkish people think he lost his connection with the Turkish people because he has started talking about the wealthy and rich. I am not sure what kind of nationality wealthy and rich people in Turkey are and why they are not considered as 'people' but it was so funny to hear about their life and challenges. My favorite part was where he brought awareness to the homophobia in Turkey. Cem Yilmaz is not only a stand up he is also a very talented drama artist. He can make any voice and imitate any person in this world. He uses his body language, mimics, gestures, his voice and vocals, his incredible ability to mimic others, dance, sing, etc. In such a way only drama artists employ. Anyway... he made me laugh a lot and that's what matters to me the most. No one in Turkey is as happy as 20 years ago including his unrelenting political opposers since he is known for his undeniable respect for Ataturk. Cem reflects this widespread cloud of discontent and unhappiness over the country in his performance without any hesitation. He is an artist not a politician so he shares his protests through his art.

Too many contradictions he told in this 1.5 hours. Is it okay to stand up comedian can say contradict things because it's joke? No. Even lets say it's fiction charecter. Even this charecter should keep a line. Contradictions: "I can't take vacations. It was 1985 last time I went vacation." After this statement he tells jokes happened while he was vacationing on 3 millions euro cost yacht. And he claims he is very an average income guy. Jerry Seinfeld, Lewis C. K they talk about money too in their shows but never claims they average Joe. They say they are rich. If someone telling you lies for sake of jokes it's insulting.

His take on the people who wish to help others if they win lottery " if you are a good person what are you doing at lottery ticket line". I didn't know that buying lottery ticket makes you bad.

A lot of complaining / jokes about his fans who try to talk to him or take a selfie with him. Jokes are funny if you can get common ground and so you can say "yea it happened to me or I witness same situation. So no one has these problems. Obviously he lost touch with common people.

Best regards to Cem Yilmaz, the great humorist. I wish everyone a happy year. It should be known that there is only one man who does standup professionally in Turkey, not two. He is also Cem Yilmaz.

Cem Yilmaz is undoubtedly most successful and prominent Turkish comedian in recent era, where his jokes has always been picked carefully from the vast majority of how Turkish people behave in a way that it is funny in nature but acted as if it is casual. These conflict observations and perfectly timing in telling always held Cem at top. Cem is now 48, and rather then trying to serve the unexpected energy of age of 20's again, he now creates the synergy of 25 years' experience on scene with the cliches of stereotype behaviors, and performs as an comedian who probably has last years on telling.

Out of context, some incorrect comments would make Cem upset as blaming him of being homophobic or racist. Fortunately, those claims are the cliches that Cem is trying to explain with his humour, and those people again blaming Cem as he is trying to tell!

It's always difficult to watch Cem's standup shows after seeing the heights he had reached in his previous shows. The expectation levels are set high. This show does fall below par some of his previous work but, it's still enjoyable.

Like most of his previous work he pokes fun at cultural behaviours. There were funny ones and not so funny ones. There was even a moment where one of his jokes failed and there was an awkward silence.

He didn't engage with the audience as much as he used to. There was only one interaction which didn't end up being a laugh out loud moment.

Overall, I did enjoy it and would recommend it.