Aziz Aslan

A political science graduate who never left the rehearsal room

Aziz Aslan was born in Istanbul in 1981 and grew up on the city's western edge, finishing at Çatalca Lisesi in 1998. The path after that was not a straight line to the stage. He started a biomedical programme at Marmara University before transferring in 2004 to Ankara University's Faculty of Letters to read political science and public administration, a degree he completed while already working in theatre. In 2012 he added a master's in advanced acting from Bahçeşehir University, formalising what by then was more than a decade of practice.

The theatre habit began much earlier. According to a 2016 biography in Sözcü, he first took creative drama and theatre classes through the Contemporary Drama Association and Zeytinburnu Municipality in 1995, while still at school. From 2000 he was working with Tiyatro Yol and Tiyatro Bahane both as an actor and as a creative drama instructor, and he passed through Zeytinburnu Municipal Theatre and the Contemporary Art Workshop in the same period. Local press in Kastamonu, where his family has roots, has since claimed him as one of their own, which is why some profiles list the Black Sea province as his hometown alongside Istanbul.

Tiyatro Kılçık and the long apprenticeship

The company that shaped him was Tiyatro Kılçık, the Istanbul group he joined in 2006 and where he has worked ever since as both instructor and performer. He also acted for and coordinated Kılçık's children's theatre arm. The productions from those years are the kind that never travel far beyond the Istanbul fringe but build a working actor's technique: Mutsuz Korkuluk, Oyun İçinde Oyun, Ellerin Dili, and in 2011 the farce Düğünde Panik, which is the one earlier stage credit that ticketing sites still list against his name.

Screen work arrived in parallel rather than as a replacement. He had a small part in the 2001 film Deli Yürek: Bumerang Cehennemi, then a run on the TV series Kahve Bahane in 2009 and 2010. The film roles came in a cluster once his profile rose: Eyvah Eyvah 3 and Olur Olur! in 2014, the latter with a character who shared his first name, and Dedemin Fişi in 2016 as Şinasi. In 2014 he played Rıza in the series Analı Oğullu, and in 2023 he appeared in Hava Muhalefeti. None of these made him a household face on their own. The sketch show did.

Fikri Tarhanacı, and the night he played the finance minister

Aslan joined BKM's Güldür Güldür Show in 2013, the year it launched on Show TV, as Fikri Tarhanacı. The character is a fixture of the programme's recurring ensemble, the put-upon, slightly pompous everyman who takes the punishment while Ali Sunal and the rest of the cast set up the gags. It is a straight-man role in a company built around big performers, and it suited an actor who had spent years teaching other people how to hold a scene together.

The sketch that pushed him beyond the show's regular audience aired in May 2022, when he played Nureddin Nebati, then Turkey's finance minister, at a moment when the economy was the only story in the country. Mynet reported that the piece became a talking point across social media and that Nebati himself responded by promising to appear on the programme. It was the kind of political impression that Turkish television rarely attempts, and it made Aslan's name searchable for a week in a way that nine years of ensemble work had not.

He was still being described as a current Güldür Güldür cast member in local press in 2024 and early 2025, and the theatre database tiyatrolar.com.tr continues to list him against the show's touring stage version. But by 2025 the centre of gravity had shifted to a project he built with two colleagues from the same world.

Kirli Sepeti: three comedians open the laundry basket

Kirli Sepeti, which translates as the dirty laundry basket, is a three-hander with Uğur Bilgin and Onur Buldu, both also known from Güldür Güldür. The premise is simple and the marketing copy does not oversell it: three men who have played hundreds of characters in films, series and sketches now stand on stage as themselves and tell stories from their own lives that they have never told in public. The İzmir paper İlkses, previewing the show's Bostanlı date on 6 April 2025, described it as built from true anecdotes, with room for improvisation, and aimed at finding the absurd in ordinary memory. The production credits are modest and telling: costume by Özge Bekçi Mermer, a poster by Galip Aksular with photography by Emrah Yağız, and no named director.

The tour began in spring 2025 and has not stopped. It played İzmir in April 2025, then a run of municipal culture centres through the following year. Fethiye TV reported on 14 March 2026 that the Özer Olgun Kültür Merkezi filled to capacity, that the audience applauded repeatedly during the performance and stood at the end. Beylikdüzü Municipality on Istanbul's European side hosted it at its Atatürk Culture and Arts Centre on 4 May 2026. On 21 August 2026 it closed the third week of the Aliağa Sanat Günleri festival at the Ulaş Bayam open-air theatre near İzmir, where demand for the single scheduled night was strong enough that the council asked for a second performance and the trio agreed. Mayor Serkan Acar, quoted in the local report on 23 August, said they had been booked for one evening and came back because the town asked.

The most recent date on record is 6 September 2026 at Çankaya Municipality's Atatürk Arts Centre in Ankara, previewed by both Yeni Birlik on 3 September and Başkent on 5 September. Bilgin told Yeni Birlik that the three of them were continuing the touring programme with the play they had staged together, and that it had been playing to full houses in several cities.

What the show is like now, and where it goes next

The format is closer to storytelling comedy than to conventional theatre, and it runs short. Beylikdüzü's listing gave the running time as 85 minutes with a 7+ age rating, and the evening shows across the tour start at 20:30. There is no support act; the three performers are the whole bill, trading anecdotes and reacting to one another, with the improvised element meaning no two nights are quite the same. Staging is minimal, which is what allows the show to move between a 700-seat municipal hall and an open-air amphitheatre in the same season. On Biletinial the production carries an audience score of 4.4 out of 5 from 534 reviews, and the local press coverage from Fethiye and Aliağa describes a crowd that laughs steadily rather than one waiting for set pieces.

Seven dates are currently on sale for the autumn. The tour returns to İzmir on 2 October 2026 at the Bostanlı Suat Taşer Salonu, where it first played in 2025, followed the next night by the İstinyeArt Performans Arena, then Çorlu's Ünal Baysan Kültür Merkezi in Tekirdağ on 4 October. Istanbul gets three nights spread across both sides of the Bosphorus: DasDas Sahne on 11 October, Üsküdar Bağlarbaşı Kültür Merkezi on 17 October and a return to Beylikdüzü on 18 October. Advertised starting prices run from 850 to 1,250 lira depending on the hall.

For Aslan the show closes a loop. He spent his twenties teaching amateurs how to tell a story on a bare stage, then a decade playing a scripted foil on national television. Kirli Sepeti puts him back on a bare stage with no script to hide behind, which is either the riskiest thing he has done or the most natural, and the municipal box offices of western Turkey seem to think it is the latter.