A beer hall in the Raval district was the chosen place for the meeting. It wasn’t. At 12 noon it was closed. The actress, comedian, impersonator and (above all) improviser Judit Martín (L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, 1976) walks down Calle Tallers in Barcelona. She goes unnoticed and that is partly what makes her stage appeal. On the radio, television or on stage she is able to collapse the brain of the spectator by linking one farce after another and, based on laughter, leading them to something that resembles happiness. A few metres further from the beer hall she finds the Centric restaurant on Calle Ramelleres. We improvise – never better said – and have a drink with Judit Martín.
“A sparkling water, please,” she asks the waiter with a mesmerizing smile that will never fade. Martín was born in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, knows the life of the neighborhood and often draws on those landscapes to create his characters. She studied Fine Arts, specialized in the “thriving” business of analog photography while, “as a hobby,” she acted in amateur theater. “We made some unwatchable shit. In fact, I think that doing that helps me remember what not to do.” Life went by aimlessly until, at the end of the 90s, one night she went as a spectator to the Café Teatro Llantiol to enjoy an improvisation show (she calls it “The Night of the Dead”).Improvisation”, (So from now on we will use this expression). That work in Llantiol changed Martín’s life forever.
The Improvisation Born in Canada, she made it big in Latin America and landed in Spain. Judit was able to sneak into the company of the Llantiol play and learn. “I was a terrible actress and I lacked all the tools,” she confesses. But she did not give up and did not miss an opportunity to train: “While I was training, I worked as a teleoperator and the only way I had to survive there was by rehearsing accents with the clients, putting on a great voice, a sexy one…”. She survived and now she only dedicates herself to acting. Improvisation.
“Monologists and the Improvisation We are considered the trash of comedy. If there were a pyramid of performing arts, many professionals would tell you that at the bottom are the classic magicians, the clown for weddings, baptisms and communions and, at the bottom, those of us who dedicate ourselves to Improvisation. Our thing is pure animation and entertainment, nothing more,” he clarifies. “Right now, I don’t know if we are at the climax of the Improvisation or in its twilight,” she says, confirming the stereotype that behind every comedian there is always a person with a certain dose of pessimism.
Martín created the company Impro Barcelona together with other actors. “When we act we have a game board, but every day we face a different game,” he reveals. These tools acquired over years of work are the ones he uses daily on radio, television or theatre.
On the radio show RAC1 version Many of his most famous characters were born live, such as La Vane, Nunú… “They were born from survival. When I create characters, intellectual work doesn’t work for me. I work on the tightrope. Most of these characters were born by improvising,” he explains. Although he admits that everything has a trick: “Most are imitations of neighbours, waiters and other anonymous people.”
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It took years of collaborations to reach her current popularity. “I have never thought of throwing in the towel, although I never believed that I would have my place in this world and, furthermore, I have never had any role model in the world.” Improvisation”, he clarifies. He finishes his sparkling water and is honest: “I think I like the Improvisation Because I’m lazy. I can’t stand stage productions, or memorizing a script and repeating it constantly.”
He neither clings to his moment of popularity nor fears that it will disappear: “I have never been worried about not making money. If they don’t call me, I make up my stories and my gigs.” Improvisation. I have worked in many communions and in many towns.” This lack of concern for money is increased by a certain addiction to starting over: “I would be very attracted, for example, to doing something in Madrid. It is like starting from scratch because neither Agatha nor Christie know me there.”
It’s not all laughter, there is also room to remember the judicial journey he went through after the ultra-Catholic entity Fundación Española de Abogados Cristianos denounced him for making a Improvisation of the Virgen del Rocío on Catalan regional television: “I had a terrible time. The ball became an unsustainable size. They attacked me from all sides, from right to left, and I just wanted to have fun.” While we are talking about dramas, there is also room to confess that not all performances have gone well in these years. He remembers one in Santa Coloma de Farners (Girona) after the independence referendum in 2017. “It was a multitudinous dinner in a sports centre. People had been sitting since seven in the evening. Quim Torra was not expected to come but he did. It was not expected either but Puigdemont came by video conference. We had to perform at 11:00 p.m. and we started around 1:30 a.m. People were pissing, shitting and smoking on themselves. They introduced us and the public began to leave the pavilion. We ended up performing for the four organisers.”
The bottle of sparkling water comes at the end and Martín reveals that there are imitations that were very difficult for him to achieve, such as that of Pilar Rahola. When it comes to confessing, he admits that he has definitely thrown in the towel with the Leticia Sabater imitation: “I can’t do it.”
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