Didi Sommer: Endlich Sommer!

Most men don't like to talk.
And not much.
But Didi Sommer does.
And about very personal things.

Most men don't like to talk.
And not much.
But Didi Sommer does.
And about very personal things.

Dietmar was born Dietmar Sommer in winter. This was the first of countless tragic challenges in little Didi's life (ok, he was never little, he was born weighing just 4.30 kg). Then he also had to grow up in the Mühlviertel. What a start to a cruelly cold Upper Austrian world!

Despite these initial adversities, his life turned out surprisingly well. He has now lived and worked in Vienna for more than half of his life. He came to cabaret via poetry slam and after three successful programs, he is now working on his fourth: "Finally Summer!"

Nomen est Omen - because "Diet" means "people" and "mar" means "legendary", so he is a storyteller from the people. People like to laugh with him about life. And people like to laugh at him and his life.

Didi Sommer tells his stories in his dialect: quaint, authentic and honest. Sometimes too honest. He reveals secrets about growing up in the Mühlviertel: Where children are doped with artificial fertilizer and forced to learn an exotic foreign language at elementary school: German. Where 12-year-olds race to secondary school on mopeds without crash helmets and nobody thinks it's strange when teenagers pick up their girlfriends from the disco on tractors.

He talks about the inner life of a man in his fifties: what hurts, why does it hurt, why doesn't it stop and why can't I drink anymore? Didi talks about his assumption that men also go through the menopause, and he talks about his broken heart because being abandoned doesn't get any easier in old age. But he also addresses global political issues, which unfortunately nobody can ignore at the moment because a nobody is shouting very loudly and "celibate" the global economy.

Didi also wonders why hurricanes with female first names are more lethal than those with male first names. And he doesn't understand why homosexuality should be curable, as Mr. Wagner, the "God's-Seidank-only-fast-abbot-of-Linz" once put it. He has a very personal anecdote about this Mr. Wagner.

Didi Sommer tells these and many other confidential and perhaps also familiar stories in Upper Austrian dialect. Unfortunately, dialect has a bad reputation and is often associated with a lack of intelligence. Or even worse: with blustering national pride. Didi wants to refute these prejudices, he knows that every dialect is worth preserving and that you can express a reality that is difficult to convey in standard German. Dialect is an emotionally unique expression. As the saying goes: "You don't live in a country, you live in a language"

Dialect as a language of humor connects people. And Didi Sommer speaks humor.