Azize Show

A bank desk, a nightclub stage, and Bülent Ersoy

Deniz Fehmi Dalsaldı worked as a clerk at a private bank from 2004 until 2010, which makes him a late starter by the standards of Turkish television comedy. The reference record on his birth is not clean: Turkish biography sites and Hürriyet give 17 February 1978 in Siirt, while the text of his Turkish Wikipedia entry says 1979 in Istanbul even as the article's own categories say 1978. A 2013 profile in Posta split the difference, describing a man born in Istanbul to a conservative family from Siirt. He studied fashion design at high school, then styling, interior design and business administration.

The push onto a stage came from colleagues and friends rather than ambition. In 2007 he began performing at Cahide, a venue owned by İzzet Çapa, and his first impression was Bülent Ersoy. Sketches came from a childhood friend, Alper Alpözgen. He worked the nightclub circuit in drag, doing celebrity voices, and the repertoire widened quickly: Sezen Aksu, Yıldız Tilbe, Zeki Müren, Zerrin Özer, Oya Aydoğan, Banu Alkan, Nazlı Ilıcak, and later the two presenters who would employ him, Saba Tümer and Melek Baykal.

That apprenticeship explains the mechanics of what he does now. The act is not written material delivered from a microphone stand; it is a voice and a body he can hold for two hours, assembled nightly in a dressing room. In the Posta interview he said the channels' make-up artists turned him into Azize while he chose the clothes himself.

Azize, named after an aunt

The character took her name from Dalsaldı's aunt. His own description of her, given to Posta, is not flattering and is not meant to be: a woman who never found happiness, "schizophrenic", sex-obsessed, prone to flirting with men she fancies, with an anarchist streak. Azize questions what people around her take as settled, and does it in the register of a neighbour rather than a satirist.

She reached a national audience through street interviews. Gullüm Show, the segment that made her, ran in 2011 on Show TV inside Saba Tümer's daytime programme, sending Azize out to talk to members of the public. In 2013 Dalsaldı moved to Star TV for Melek, Melek Baykal's show, and left in the same year. From 2015 to 2016 he was part of Herşey Dahil on Show TV alongside Alişan and Çağla Şıkel.

Not everyone enjoyed being in range. Posta reported that Nur Yerlitaş and Pakize Suda both threatened legal action over his impressions of them. Dalsaldı's answer was that "imitation sustains the original, actually". Asked which of the two he was, Azize or Fehmi, he said: "However you wish. Both are me anyway." His family, religious background and all, backed the work.

Musicals, a screen credit, and a 2016 arrest

Away from the character, Dalsaldı took leading roles in musicals written and directed by Müjdat Gezen: Şarkılar Seni Söyler in 2018, Pera Müzikali in 2019 and Çalsın Sazlar in 2020. That strand matters to what audiences see on tour, because it is where the musical staging of the current show comes from — a comedian who has carried a Gezen musical can hold a stage with a band behind him. On screen he appeared in the 2014 film Zaman Makinesi 1973 and in the series Vahşi Şeyler across 2020 and 2021.

There is also a criminal matter on the record. On 18 February 2016, at Ercan Airport in Nicosia, a narcotics dog signalled on him and a search found roughly two grams of cannabis in a trouser pocket. He was arrested and brought before a judge, and Hürriyet reported the following day that he would be held for two days while the investigation continued, and that he expressed remorse in court. Nothing in the material opened for this piece suggests it interrupted his career for long.

Where things stand in late 2026

The most recent new venture is dated 18 October 2024, when Dalsaldı launched Azize ile Date Night Show, a programme recorded in front of a live audience and streamed on his YouTube channel Azize Show, which has existed since 2013. It gives the character a recurring home between tour dates and keeps the in-person format — audience in the room, Azize working them — rather than translating her into a studio monologue.

The touring has scaled. In July 2024 the Azize Show run took in Adana on the 3rd, Diyarbakır on the 5th, Antalya on the 10th, Beşiktaş on the 11th and İzmir on the 16th, and Antalya Ekspres previewed a 24 August 2024 date at Panda Fikir & Sanat Atölye with tickets from 384 lira. Two years on, Biletix lists nine dates on sale with entry prices between 1,100 and 1,375 lira; Turkish inflation accounts for much of that climb, but the venues have also grown.

The current block is a Friday-and-Saturday club circuit through late 2026: Samsun's Rock City on 6 November, Doz Live in Beylikdüzü, Istanbul on 7 November, Fakülte Osmangazi in Eskişehir on 13 November, Pub Locale in Bursa on 20 November, Sahne Beşiktaş on 28 November, and L'alibi Meşelipark in Bursa on 18 December, with further Sakarya, İzmir and Ankara dates listed across the ticketing platforms. A separate strand, Azize ile Güllüm Şov, runs as a late-opening cabaret-room night at Dada Salon Kabarett, doors at 19:30, also restricted to over-18s.

What the room gets

The show runs 120 minutes, is performed in Turkish, and is sold strictly to over-18s with ID checked at the door. Listings describe a live orchestra behind the comedy, which is the element that separates it from a standard Turkish stand-up bill: the set is paced to rhythm, and the music carries the transitions rather than sitting in as an interval turn.

The staging is built around leaving the stage. Azize comes down into the seating and works between the tables, which is why the booked rooms are pubs and club spaces with table layouts — Rock City, Pub Locale, Alt Pub, L'alibi Meşelipark — rather than seated theatres. Some venues sell lodge seating at up to 3,000 lira; none of the nine dates lists a support act, so the two hours are his.

Audience feedback on the ticketing platforms is short and positive. Biletinial shows a 5.0 average from eleven reviews, with one attendee calling it highly entertaining and well made and another describing it as sincere and genuine. The one complaint on the record is about a venue's ventilation, not the act — a fair summary of a show whose risk is the room, not the material.