Didi Sommer: Finally Summer!

Most men don't like to talk. And not much. Didi Sommer does. And he talks about very personal things. Dietmar was born in winter as Dietmar Sommer. This was the first of countless tragic challenges in little Didi's life (okay, he was never little; he came into the world weighing 4.30 kg). Then he also had to grow up in the Mühlviertel. What a start to a cruel, cold Upper Austrian world! Despite these initial adversities, his life turned out surprisingly well. He has been living and working in Vienna for more than half of his life now. He came to cabaret through poetry slam, and after three successful programs, the fourth one is now in the making: "Finally Summer!"

Nomen est Omen – because "Diet" means "people" and "mar" means "legendary," he is a storyteller from the people. People enjoy laughing with him about life. And they enjoy laughing at him and his life. Didi Sommer tells stories in his dialect: rustic, authentic, and honest. Sometimes too honest. He shares secrets about growing up in the Mühlviertel: where children are doped with artificial fertilizer and are forced to learn an exotic foreign language in elementary school: German. Where 12-year-olds zoom to school on mopeds without helmets, and no one finds it strange when teenagers pick up their girlfriends from the disco in a tractor.

Didi Sommer tells such and many other intimate and perhaps familiar stories in the Upper Austrian dialect. Unfortunately, dialect has a bad reputation and is often associated with a lack of intelligence. Or worse: with boisterous national pride. Didi wants to dispel these prejudices; he knows that every dialect is worth preserving and that one can articulate a reality that is difficult to convey in standard German. Dialect is a uniquely emotional expression. As the saying goes: "You don't live in a country; you live in a language."

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