Harry Klynn is a truly radiant actor whose stagecraft is prolific yet  calm and which allows him to woo his audience and win it over unconditionally. That in itself is quite a difficult task in these sullen, cautious times we live in. Klynn belongs to that category of rarely gifted performers where what is said in not important anymore as much as how it is said.

ELEFTHEROTYPIA (daily Greek newspaper)

Harry Klynn’s each record is a complete satiric work that reaches deep. It does not restrain itself merely to the surface of opportune chance. It is the natural evolution of a lavish talent, who survived the jungle of the consuming night club stages and now finds it rightful expression in this unique for the Greek standards kind of recordings.

KATHIMERINI (daily Greek Newspaper)

Harry Klynn, our very own Harry Klynn continues to charm and amaze us! He takes risks, and acts at his own will, never the will of the public…  and occasionally they react to this, they fight back, they want to see and hear what they are used to seeing and hearing.  But Harry Klynn takes us by the hand and leads us through other paths… He takes us to other cities, “anarchic”, as the song goes. And in a time of global  democracy the anarchic ways of Harry Klynn are the most valuable gifts not only to our individuality but to Democracy herself.

MAKEDONIA (Greek Daily Newspaper)

Klynn is ravishing. Smart,  impertinent,  indignant, satiric, he means what he says with out ever revoking them. He is not a painless kind of entertainer.

ATHINORAMA (Athens City Guide)

Ο Χάρρυ Κλυνν είναι ένα φαινόμενο που μεσουρανεί πολλά χρόνια τώρα με την ίδια επιτυχία κι αυτό δεν είναι τυχαίο. Διασπώντας βίαια την ηθική της μέσης αστικής τάξης, δημιουργεί καθρέφτες ικανούς να μας κάνει να γελάμε και να δακρύζουμε με την υπάρχουσα κατάσταση. Μοναδικός στο είδος του και ίσως αξεπέραστος ο Χάρρυ Κλυνν έγραψε και γράφει τη δική του ιστορία στο χώρο της Τέχνης μέσα από την αιχμηρή σάτιρα που αναβαπτίζει, εάν θέλετε, τις ενοχές και τις ανοχές μας.

ELEYTEROS TYPOS (daily Greek Newspaper)

Harry Klynn is an tireless showman who can keep the show on all by himself.

AVGI (Greek Daily Newspaper)

The latest interview Harry Klynn gave to Eleni Sourdi of the monthly magazine VITRINE STYLE

How was Harry Klynn as a kid? (proper, naughty, wild, grumpy?)

I was born and raised in Kalamaria, on the east side of Thessaloniki. Kalamaria today with its luxurious blocks of flats, the numerous cafes, the restaurants and the multiplex cinemas bears no relation to the Kalamaria I knew then. At that time it was a refugee settlement of shacks and sheds (which we used to call booths) and there over the beach at Aretsou where the yacht  marina and the modern cafés are now, there was only the “Pergatory” where our immigrant parents used to stay quarantined before they allowed them to enter their new country. Electricity and running water in the houses was a joke for us. As where proper asphalt streets… We were not meant for such luxuries… When it rained, the whole settlement transformed into a vast mudflat, a thick dark mud which clinked on our shoes like a leach… (those of us who were lucky enough to have shoes). That is how we, the people from Pontos, got the nickname “tsamouria” which means muddy… Most of the kids in my age where adults even when they were young. Children who were working even at their most tender age. I myself did every job a kid could do. I worked and went to school at the same time and as most of the kids from Pontos I was good at my classes even though I didn’t even have books. I was not especially wild or grumpy. My sister who raised me says that I was a very obedient child, beloved in the neighborhood. In school everybody loved me too because I made them laugh. I was imitating the voices of your teachers and improvised sketches during the breaks and school excursions which everybody seemed to enjoy. 

Is there something in your childhood that has left a mark and why? 

Unfortunately there is… My father Nicholas was a communist as were 99,9% of the refugees from Pontos. In those years though, being a communist meant that you were a “traitor”, “an enemy of the church and the motherland”, “a guerilla” and etc…And us being the children of a communist, we were considered to be the black sheep. Δυστυχώς υπάρχει… We grew up under the policemen watch with fear and contempt as our sole companions. In 1949 some charity organisations send to our school warm winter clothing to be distributed among the distinguished but poor pupils… I fitted the description perfectly. Excellent in my classes but outrageously poor… But it was in vain that I waited for that jacket with the fur collar… Ms Aslanidou – hope God forgave her- had no intention in giving clothes to the son of the “communist”…

The fact that you grew up in a “land of colors” (Harry Klynn was the son of the painter Nikos Triantafyllidis), how much did it affect you as a personality?

I saw my father paint and my mother nagging about not having enough to eat. And who could blame her? Who would ever buy a painting in Kalamaria and even more buy a communist artist?  So Nicholas had to paint houses and any kind of signs to get by. Now and then he would sell a picture or two but always for next to nothing… How would I dare to talk to my mother about painting… I might become a doctor I said and she liked the idea… But Nikolas’s colors never faded in my heart. I remember myself painting with whatever I could get my hands on. I was really good at small fabrications out of screws and foil and old mechanical parts that I found in abundance in the nearby English camp. Later on, I got involved in carving figures from “Karagiozis” (Greek version of Mr Punch) which I carved with a big nail I used to put over the tram rails so that after the tram had passed over it, it would transform it in a cutter… Now I can also paint on my computer. It doesn’t matter with what you paint as long as you paint…

To what point has your wife Hariklia been a source of inspiration?

Hariklia was and still is my guarding angel. We met in America and got married there. We passed through very hard times, when we were traveling all over the country to make ends meet. We had three children and raised them well and now that we have our grandchild, it feels like starting all over again… The first judge of my work has always been Hariklia, and she always had a kind word to say. I used to protest, saying “It can’t be, there must be something that bothers you in all this…” and she would always smile and say “believe me, there isn’t…”

Which Greek or foreign comedians, humorists or satirists have influenced your work?

They say that in this business, you have to step on something to get started. Primarily, I never had in mind to become a comedian so I never thought of stepping on something. I was always interested in writing and painting. I can honestly say that it was by pure luck that I got on stage. And it was by chance that I found myself studying acting as well. I didn’t particularly enjoy stage revues, although very in fashion at the time, and I was not very fond of Greek cinema ethographies either, I believed they devoured rare comic talents… At an age where others were abroad they were shooting the “Bycicle Thief” all we had to show were pointless comedies and mushy melodramas… Thank god for those 5 or 6 Greek writers and directors which gave us something worthwhile to remember… As for our poets I think that Kariotakis and Souris where the ones that affected me the most… It was definitely them… 

What is there left now out of the time when you were involved in the affairs of “Apollon Kalamarias”? Good memories or “ Dear god, never again!”?

I got involved with Apollon and football out of love for Kalamaria and the Pontiac people. Anyway I owed it to the team… At a time when we had nothing else to be proud of, Apollon made us feel equal with everybody else by taking the Thessaloniki Championship… It was the stone that crashed the crystal glass that kept us apart from the rest of the city. There are only good memories I have of this team and I do not feel sorry for the sacrifices me and my family had to make for its sake. My unpleasant memories come mostly from the time when I became president of E.P.A.E. (the National Union of Football Clubs) and really held the fate of Greek football in my hands.  It was then I really got acquainted to the political – executive status quo behind it all, and “Dear God” is an understatement when describing the scenes of “ultimate beauty” I experienced through the duration of my presidency.  State and executives would compete in wretchedness against each other, at the expense of course of the one thing they were supposed to serve… It is admirable how the sport managed to survive… if it has survived, it seems to be in a coma these last few years! Football is the most popular sport in the world. In Greece of pretense, the “illiterate intellectuals” and the all consuming state lead it straight to the arms of the opportunist “investors”… But still it survived and managed to grant us a few pleasures as well… To us and of course all those who ill spoke and smeared it and did everything in their power to wipe it out of the face of the earth!

You are characterized as a “popular artist” who is also an “intellectual”. How do those two combine?

Everyone can describe me as he likes. I believe in what Oscar Wilde once said: “ the things that people say about a person don’t make him a different person. He is what he is.” I am what I am, in the end I am what everyone perceives of me,  when he watches me act or reads my texts. People don’t care for this sort of labeling.

How did your ten year stay in America and Canada (1964 – 1974) affect your career afterwards?

It was the time when I formed my artistic integrity, the time when I said my big “No’s”  and I’m still very glad about it. I said no to the system absorbing me and believe me it wasn’t easy. I stayed underground when the birth of stand up comedy started to occur. We use to call it “Theatre for the Poor”. Its main characteristic was harsh political and social satire. And although I had many offers to join the mainstream scene, I preferred to serve this new genre, no matter what sacrifices I had to make. If I said yes, it would be probably very difficult for me to return to Greece, and I wouldn’t even hear that. And on the other hand, I couldn’t imagine myself playing the part of the entertainer, saying stupid jokes and being consumed in meaningless acts… 

During that time in America, your humor was based mainly on the anger of the suppressed minorities (Jews, Blacks, Latins, Mediterranean immigrants). Did that have to do at all with your own origin?

It is exactly as you put it, only the anger of protest of those displayed people was silent. And the theatrical acts of that kind were also a family business. The venues which hosted these kinds of spectacles – 5 or 6 comedians appearing one after the other- were mostly bars in the ghetto neighborhoods of New York and Chicago. Something important had to happen to get this genre out of the ghettos and it did through the adventurous course of Lenny Brus and Dick Gregory… Soon enough, it was adopted by the activists, the anti-racialists, the intellectuals and the progressive minds in general… I consider it an honor that in this agonizing course I played my small part as a comedian and a writer.

In 1990 with the establishment of private television you left your mark through two major events: the “HARRY KLYNN SPECIAL SHOWS” and “CITIZEN KLYNN”. Quite many people actually believe that “CITIZEN KLYNN is the reason why Greek sit coms are undergoing such major crisis. Do you agree to this point of view?

Well, there is one thing I can say. After these two shows, followed numerous programs that tried to mimic their style and the characters that paraded through them. But I do not believe they had something new to offer. They were trapped in the “CITIZEN KLYNN” structure without being able to escape it or present something more radical. “CITIZEN KLYNN” was the TV version of the philosophy of stand up comedy. Those imitating the series just failed to see that satire was born out of a need for protest and that the satirist transforms this protest into art. They also forgot that there is a wide spectrum covering what is light as well as what is serious. A true satirist should focus on what’s serious and use what’s light as means for entertainment… In most –if not all- the satiric programs I see today, it happens the other way round.

There was a time when the audience had the chance to enjoy a new Harry Klynn record every year. Are those times gone for good? And what is the reason for it? Might it be the multiple activities of Vasilis Triantafyllidis (poetry, novels, revues)?

I don’t act for acting, neither do I write for writing. I use a form of expression in order to communicate and I don’t decide that this year I must write a book or that I must do a film the next. If I feel I should do a record I will… You do not program things like these but on the other hand, you can’t do everything at the same time…  However I feel more than ready to prepare my new record. Do you want to know the title? “LITTLE MARIA IN THE GARDEN OF SPEARS”…

What do you see in the future when it comes to Revue? Will it go on using the same recipes or do you feel there might be a rejuvenation of the genre? Is there hope for it?

Let’s define the satiric spectacle as “Revue” so that we know what we are talking about. We may die but “Revue” will still be here… And after a hundred years some fellow journalist of yours in the future will probably extend some future Harry Klynn this exact same question…

I would like you to describe to me personal moments that include a heavy dose of humor and thus left a mark on you…

Though it may sound contradictory, in a satirist’ s life there cannot be a heavy dose of humor because a satirist is not a humorist. Dictionaries my interpret humor as: cheerful mood which manifests without effusion, harmless irony, cool hilarity, considerate sarcasm, merry absurdity and the humorist as the one who speaks in humor, who mocks harmlessly and superficially, the ironic joker… But a satirist is the one who feels that his age is so bad that he find it difficult to be humorous about it… Satire is not of a transcending nature. It bears nothing out of the world it forgets, the forgotten world. The experiences of love and death, with all their basic grandeur lay  beyond the boundaries of satire. In tragedy or comedy they may be glorified and praised. But SATIRE DOES NOT PRAISE… IT DEBUNKS… So by the nature of things there can be no personal moments with humor in a satirist’ s life… If you were talking of heavy doses of bitterness you might be closer to reality…

If you were to go back to that incredible Greek movie “The Greek Wedding” with Ksenia Kalogeropoulou, Giorgos Kostantinou, Despo Diamandidou and a small sized Harry Klynn, frail and crammed in a tiny bathroom with a huge trombone… how would you feel?

People who go back are usually the only ones who can see ahead. And when I go back I don’t only see a small sized and frail Harry, I can also see the spirit, the ridicule, the irony, the sarcasm, the cynicism, the grin etc. I see all those things that cause pain BECAUSE SATIRE MEANS TO CAUSE PAIN, but as with the bull fighter so with the satirist, his worth lies not in his capacity to do the job, but more like in the skill he manifests while doing it. I can see the harsh course of this young boy which started forty years ago! And still goes on…

If it was today that you uttered the line “and all of a sudden I see the monster!” (one of the most popular Harry Klynn lines) which monsters would you be describing?

I would like to invite you to see our show in “DELFINARIO”. There you might get a clearer view of all the monsters that surround us… Political adventurism, moral decline, inadequate education, crooked development, state terrorism, civilian – consumer, hypocrisy, vanity, television populism… I could mention hundreds of things that would make the Loch Ness monster go pale…

Giannis Kakoulidis. What does he remind, what does he mean to Harry Klynn?

Poet Giannis Kakoulidis is my brother. We leaved and worked miracles together which meant to change the way a whole country would laugh. I would dare say that with Giannis we’ve said everything. And if we left something out… we will say soon…

Left? Leftism? Socialism? Red beads? What of those?

Now that the beginning of the fall of capitalism is clear and obvious, the left is not leftism, neither socialism nor red beads. The left ideology is the only hope mankind has got…

You have been involved in all kinds of things. Is there something which you haven’t got to doing yet?

Well, I always leave a little something for later….

Are there things that you wouldn’t do under any circumstances?

Most of the things that I see our life’s and luck’s rulers do all the time…