Bülent Ceylan

Bülent Ceylan (born 4 January 1976) is a German comedian and Kabarett artist. He plays several comic roles with frequent themes being the quirks of Germans from Turkish family backgrounds and people from Mannheim, told in the dialect of Mannheim.

Early life and education

Ceylan was born in Mannheim. His mother Hilde is a Hungarian-born German, his father Ahmet Ceylan (d. 2012) was a Turkish entrepreneur in the construction industry. He has three older siblings. He attended the Friedrich-Ebert elementary school and Ludwig-Frank-Gymnasium in Mannheim. In his eleventh year, he had a performance parodying Boris Becker, which was very well received by teachers and students.

After the Abitur in 1995, Ceylan did an internship with the German music channel VIVA and the radio station RPR1. In the beginning, he performed on small stages, afterwards he studied philosophy and political science but quit university in favor of his stage career.

Career

In November 2002, Ceylan started the successful comedy program Döner for one (blend of Döner and Dinner for One), with which he achieved his national breakthrough.

In July 2006, the premiere of his program Halb getürkt (wordplay: "getürkt" is colloquial for "faked", but Ceylan is also half Turkish) was broadcast on ZDF. In 2007, he followed up with Kebabbel net (blend of Kebab and "babbel net" meaning "Stop talking (crap)") which was later recorded and broadcast by RTL in 2009. This brought him the German Comedy Award in the category Newcomer and the CIVIS-Medienpreis for integration in May 2010. At the same time, Ceylan celebrated the premiere of his program Ganz schön turbülent (blend of "turbulent" and his name) for which he was awarded the German Comedy Award as best comedian in 2010.