The standard of public life as a whole is rotten, and I have not wanted to participate in it for some time. I've already said what I wanted, I'm bored, politics goes on happily without me - says Sándor Fábry, who instead of the role of narrator, this time he's waiting for the audience with a music-dance revue based on the images of Dr Máriás on May 9-10-11 at the to the Great Hall of Akvárium Klub. Interview by Anita Farkas

You talked about four more tickets sold last week, how are the numbers now?

It started well. But when two on the first day turned into four the next day, I calmed down. Everyone knows the chessboard analogy: if sales double every day, then at the beginning of next week mounted policemen will have to stop the crowd waiting to enter.

Especially those fans who already fought in the bookstore a few years ago for his joint work with Dr. Márias, Etudes for Fox Saws and Molded Magpies. Is the current "realist revue" or can we call it an all-art performance, some sort of further thought?

Perhaps it is rather the incipient mental disorder, pathological exhibitionism, a completely incorrect assessment of one's own abilities, or aggressive dilettantism that makes its way here. If I may jump further, I have never prepared for anything, I have never planned anything in advance, most of the turns in my life are completely accidental. In other words, I didn't stand up to him, and I bit my fingernails, how can you, for example, be a clown in the Radio Cabaret and be a showman. I didn't think about that, just as I didn't think about changing systems or methods at the time.

If this public game Let's Share the Hairy Lollipop Again doesn't come out, then I'll probably still be writing screenplays at the film factory today,

I might have directed a few three-minute short films about the vimes box.

All I want to say is that just as my life is not a conceptually structured thing, neither is the creation of this piece. It feeds on a running idea. In the first place, the book was created from such a fleeting idea, since I opened many of his exhibitions for my dear friend and also gave guided tours. He suggested that I write down some of my ramblings. It wasn't easy, because the pictures are already very witty, they speak for themselves; it is the case of the irrigated irrigator to put something else on them. The volume was somehow completed and turned out beautiful, thanks to the Kossuth Press.

In other words, did the mental illness start earlier?

Certainly. And the matter only escalated when, with our eight-page presentation plan, six of which are pictures, we started arguing with the calmness of underdogs about who would pay for this obvious nonsense. At such times, one immediately runs into all kinds of political walls, I would rather not quote the opinion of the managers of the traditional stone theaters when they drove us away. Finally, in a surprising twist, we managed to get some support from Szilárd Demeter. But we can be grateful not only to him, but also to Norbert Lobenwein, who gave us the large hall of the Akvárium, where there is rarely a theater. I've known him for a long time, because he invited me to the first Volt Festival. He said that you don't have to do anything, don't even perform, come, Sanyi, just enjoy yourself. He is a very clever child, as is Fülöp Zoli, and it is thanks to them that we are now talking under a nice big glass roof with water on top, so the sun's rays fall at a strangely nice angle. I naively thought that with their help we found such a great place, which is not marked with a strong political sign, but

of course, the commentators are already pushing that the Fidesz g..i, as it has been on public TV for years, is scattering state money here as well.

Does this sort of thing annoy you?

Not at all. Certain commentators cannot be met anyway. Let's just say I don't want to, I don't even have a smartphone, it's just a crappy push button, I don't care about all that. I'm glad there's a rock venue like this where aging comedians can perform idiotic pieces in quotation marks. For the first time in their lives, moreover, with a pre-written text.

So is it a one man show or a collective art?

Only in the sense that everything is controlled by my taste, the interludes are as I would have liked them, and the ones I wanted will be here: Eszter Váczi and the Quartet, the dancers of Varidance, Tereskova, the opal-eyed Andrea Bozó, Jocó Tóth and Zoltán Friedenthal, champions of the alternative scene, and András Szőke, Nurejev from Taljándörögd. They are the extended parts of me, for example, instead of the dancers, I dance in a spiritual sense, because obviously I cannot physically.

And what was the basis for the casting?

All of the above, including Dr. Márias, who gave the idea, are participants in Hungarian culture who, for me, cannot be classified sympathetically. And this, before anyone gets stoned, does not mean that those who can be classified, on any page or trend, do not create high-quality products. The fact that someone is unclassifiable is not a value in itself, he can easily do shit. These figures also have a greater degree of freedom in life than the average. Which is also not a value in itself, but I might be sympathetic, and that's why I might want to work with them.

Isn't artistic unclassifiable just as much of a myth as, say, independent journalism? A few years ago, even you had a strong opinion on everything from the opposition to migrants, but for some time now you have been silent on public issues. Why did you leave the party?

Because the standard of the entire public life has become stagnant.

József Antall was still able to eat with a knife and fork, which is unimaginable for a significant part of today's set,

and now consider this a metaphor. And yes, I don't want to participate in this for a while. I've already said what I wanted, I'm bored, politics is going on happily even without me.

And won't you get tired of talking only about family stories and everyday life, like most Hungarian comedians? Isn't this a convenience or rather cowardice? Avoid the harsher topics so that part of the audience doesn't turn away?

No one forced them to do this, just like me. It is of course possible that if someone in the Radio Cabaret that I manage suggests that Viktor Orbán should be kicked out of the system with 72 hand stabs, we will not give space to this suggestion. Why shouldn't anyone be able to criticize Viktor Orbán on any forum today, if someone feels like it? – among others, Tibor Bödőcs also does this continuously without getting hurt.

Anyway, I notice that the Kádárist tradition is that

we criticize the authorities, we try to talk them down, and if we outsmart the censors, we end up in a state close to orgasm,

expired a long time ago. The rules of the game have changed, there is somehow no ground for this, and there is no real receptiveness on the part of the audience either.

So what's up?

As far as I can see, it's the foaming of things related to everyday life that gets the most success. People don't change very much: in the movie Hyppolit, the footman, at the scene when the great woman picks up the pieces of paper for sport, a country laughed - and is still laughing today.

While we're talking here, you've also fallen off the table laughing three times. I didn't do anything, I just lived my life, lay on the couch, got some rice pudding, and tricked the photographer colleague into looking for my neck brace.

The full interview can be read HERE!

Featured image: Márton Ficsor