Behzat Uygur

Born into the family firm

Behzat Uygur was born on 21 April 1963, one of the five sons of Nejat Uygur and Necla Uygur. His father, born in Kilis on 10 August 1927, set up the Nejat Uygur Tiyatrosu at the end of the 1940s and spent decades touring Turkey with broad comedies such as Cibali Karakolu and Hastane mi Kestane mi?; the Ministry of Culture gave him the State Artist title in 1998, and he died in Istanbul on 18 November 2013 after four years in hospital following a stroke. Nejat and Necla married in 1950, and two of the sons, Süheyl and Behzat, ended up on stage beside him.

Before the theatre took him, Behzat Uygur played football in Galatasaray's youth setup. He dates his professional stage career to 1987, when he first walked on in Ankara in his father's production of Hastane mi Kestane mi. Four years later, in 1991, he and his older brother Süheyl founded the Süheyl-Behzat Uygur Tiyatrosu, the company they still run. Its early repertory — Boynuz Kulağı Geçer, Üç Salakşörler, Süt Kardeşler — came largely out of the same comic tradition their father had been working in since the 1940s, played fast, played loud, and played for the back row.

Away from the company he has also taught theatre arts at Beykent University.

Twelve years of Saturday and Sunday nights

What made the brothers national figures was not the stage but the television studio. Şahane Cumartesi ran from 1994 to 1998, and its successor Şahane Pazar from 1998 to 2004: a weekend variety hour built from sketches, games, music and audience contests, with the two brothers in the middle of it. For a generation of Turkish viewers that programme is the point of recognition, and the reason a stage revival in 2026 could fill halls in cities the company had never regularly toured.

Behzat Uygur kept working in the format long after Şahane Pazar ended, presenting Buzda Dans, Amiral Battı, Harika Show, Korolar Çarpışıyor, Bak Şu Duvara and Kaç Para?, and appearing in scripted series including Kafadarlar and Hüsnü Kuruntu Ailesi. The television work never displaced the company; it subsidised and advertised it.

The repertory that holds

The company's anchor production is Süt Kardeşler, drawn from Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpınar and adapted for the stage by Nejat Uygur, which the brothers direct and head the cast of. It opened on 5 December 2019 at the Trump Kültür ve Gösteri Merkezi in Istanbul and is now in its seventh season. The plot turns on two naval conscripts who swap their leave papers and the tangle that follows, sorted out in the end by a commander named Gazanfer. The staging keeps the 1950s: period sets by Batuhan Bozcaada, period costume, and a playing style inherited rather than reconstructed. It runs two acts and 120 minutes and carries a 13+ rating, with Nurten İnan, Ekin Gezer, Sefa Alper Öztürk, Zeynep Yaylıcıoğlu and Görkem Talay alongside the brothers. At the 2022 Yeni Tiyatro Dergisi awards the production took best supporting male performance in the comedy and musical category.

Running alongside it is Hey Gidi Günler, billed as a şarkılı interaktif komedi — a musical interactive comedy — which premiered at the Antalya Haşim İşcan Kültür Merkezi on 11 and 12 March 2021 with support from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, tickets then at 15 and 20 lira. The pitch was plain: three decades of stage memories, some funny and some not, told by the two men who lived them, with the audience pulled in along the way. It is now in its eighth year and has travelled as far as Germany. Hasta Etme Adamı, also from 2019, and Marko Paşa Müzikali remain in the active repertory.

Behzat Uygur received the Emek Ödülü — a long-service award — at the Yeni Tiyatro Dergisi awards in 2022.

Putting Şahane Pazar back on a stage

In an interview published on 23 August 2026 the brothers set out the plan: Şahane Pazar would come back roughly 25 years after it left television, but as a live show rather than a broadcast, with a digital release to follow. Behzat Uygur put the reason simply — the audience had missed it — and credited sustained pressure from viewers online for getting it made. In the same conversation he was blunt about casting, saying the company would rather work with capable and decent performers than with social-media names, on the grounds that reach and ability are not the same thing. He also flagged a 2027 version of Şeyini Şey Ettiğimin Şeyi.

Şahane Pazar Sahnede opened on 25 September 2026 in Çayırova, Kocaeli, and reached Istanbul three days later at the Bostancı Gösteri Merkezi on 28 September. It is a large piece of machinery by the company's standards: an 80-strong production team, a live orchestra, choreographed dance sections and guests announced on the night. Segments from the television original, among them Belediye Çukuru and Balon Oyunu, have been rebuilt for a stage and a ticketed audience, who play in the contests rather than watch them. Uygur has described the result as having no real equivalent elsewhere in the touring market. The booked route covers 25 cities and about 8,700 kilometres.

October 2026: an interruption

Necla Uygur died at 89 after a spell in hospital; her son Behzat announced it on social media. Her funeral was held at Teşvikiye Camii on Friday 9 October 2026 following afternoon prayers, with burial at Feriköy Cemetery. She had been married to Nejat Uygur since 1950 and worked closely with him throughout his career.

On 13 October the brothers announced that several Şahane Pazar Sahnede dates would move. Their reasoning was specific to the format: the show has no script and no characters to hide behind — they appear as themselves and work directly off the crowd — and they said they could not walk out and produce that kind of energy as though nothing had happened. They apologised to ticket-holders and said they hoped to be laughing with them again before long.

The tour resumed rather than collapsed. Ticket agencies were listing roughly two dozen dates between mid-October and 19 December 2026, running Denizli on 18 October and the İzmir Kültürpark Açıkhava Tiyatrosu on 19 October, then an Antalya–Muğla–Isparta–Ankara–Mersin week from 5 November, a central Anatolian leg through Nevşehir, Kayseri, Kırşehir and Konya in mid-November, an eastern leg taking in Kars on 23 November, Trabzon on 25 November, Rize, Erzincan, Erzurum and Diyarbakır to 29 November, then Gaziantep on 1 December, Bursa and Adana on 3 December, Eskişehir on 7 December and two further Adana dates on 9 and 19 December. Süt Kardeşler continues in Istanbul in parallel, with a performance at Trump Sahne on 25 October.