The Martin Decker Show is a delightful, funny and emotional mockumentary about male mental health, online culture, escapism and uncertainty that started its life as a series of YouTube sketches during the pandemic. Watch the YouTube shorts that inspired The Martin Decker Show.
Martin Decker cares deeply about his online audience, but he loves his wife and kids more, as he longs for their return; his recent family separation is a raw, open wound. On first impressions, it would appear Cardiff’s latest YouTube phenomenon is happy as he shoots episodes of The Martin Decker Show in his bathroom, episodes ranging from cooking lessons to skits with his bearded dragon and discussions on long-lost Star Wars toys found in the attic of his mum’s home. But Martin isn’t happy; it’s all a facade. Martin wants his wife and kids to walk back through the door; he wants his mundane IT job back and desperately wants to find who he really is again.
The pandemic and lockdown are never mentioned in Kevin Jones and Keiron Self’s mockumentary about a middle-aged man who becomes a very local online hit. But the pandemic and lockdown surround Martin Decker’s amateur bathroom-based videos and sketches.
On average, every minute, 500 hours of video content are uploaded to YouTube! It’s a mind-boggling statistic, especially as most of it will likely never be seen. During the pandemic, this figure went up as many people who had always wanted to be the next PewDiePie, Thatcher Joe (is he still a thing?), or Mr Beast picked up their phones and began filming out of sheer boredom while taking small breaks for Zoom calls, shopping delivery slots and take-out orders from the local pub.
The Martin Decker Show is a delightful, funny and emotional mockumentary about male mental health, online culture, escapism and uncertainty that started its life as a series of YouTube sketches during the pandemic. It’s one man’s midlife crisis played out online for all to see through the beautiful performance of Keiron Self, the masterful direction of Bafta Cymru-winning film editor Kevin Jones, and the brilliant writing of this powerhouse Welsh partnership. I recently met with Kevin and Keiron to discuss The Martin Decker Show, pandemic partnerships and a family bathroom that became a film set.
“…Keiron and I never saw each other socially; we only met to do some filming. It was so strange, but we had this creative urge and focus and made it our policy to refrain from mentioning COVID during Martin’s story. Many people were filming about the pandemic era, and we just thought, we’re just not going to mention it; we’ll just use it to our artistic advantage in telling the story of a man who’s become socially isolated.”
Kevin Jones
Q: Congratulations on The Martin Decker Show. Can you tell me about the inspiration for the creation of Martin Decker and the journey from YouTube sketches to a feature-length mockumentary?
Kevin: Martin Decker originally started as a theatre piece, which was quite different to what we ended up with due to the arrival of COVID-19 and the transformation from a stage to a digital piece. I had been working on a TV show operating under strict COVID rules and had learnt a bit about GoPro cameras and filming on an iPhone, so I knew it could be done. Keiron was up for it, so we just said, ” Let’s do it!
Keiron: We had done a reading of the proposed play before COVID hit in the winter of 2019; it was about a middle-aged bloke who had gone through a midlife crisis and got into rap music. Realising that theatre may never be on the cards again, we decided to revisit the play and have a bit of fun with it by transforming it into a digital story. Kevin sacrificed his family bathroom for Martin’s set and put up cameras to film his YouTube sketches and conversations.
Kevin: (Laughs) The cameras have gone now! And my family thankfully stayed!
Keiron: (Laughs) After loads of self-recorded material, when the opportunity presented itself, we got masked up, opened the bathroom windows to let in loads of air, and socially distanced ourselves with me in the bathroom and Kevin in another room, watching via an iPad. We then tried a few sketches and posted them on YouTube to see what happened. We did three or four and kept coming up with different ideas for Martin, so it sort of snowballed from there.
Q: What was the reaction on YouTube?
Keiron: The one we did where Martin plays Minecraft got a stupid amount of views, probably because it had Minecraft in it, but it also seemed to hit a nerve for many people. People were really supportive, weren’t they, Kev?
Kevin: Yeah. If you look at the film now, you can see the different stages of COVID and lockdown. There’s one part where Martin moves to his mother’s bungalow. That’s actually Keiron’s house because we weren’t allowed to see each other during lockdown. There was another part where Martin became a plasticine figure, and that was again because we couldn’t get together. We weren’t allowed to. But because we both had recording equipment at home, we could work together remotely.
So, we managed to find a way to keep it going. When we reached the end of COVID, we looked at all the material and knew we had enough for a film, but we also felt that any feature shouldn’t just have Martin in it. So once we were allowed to film outside, we brought new people in to finish Martin’s story. I played around and thought about how we could bring the whole story together. It probably took about two years.
Keiron: We kept coming up with stuff for Martin to do while filling out his backstory. You know, what’s his mum like? What’s his relationship with his wife? We were surprised at how much mileage there was in this everyday man of a certain age, and when lockdowns lifted slightly, finding the right people to work with us in completing Martin’s story was wonderful.
Q: Was Martin’s story a creative lifeline for you both during the pandemic and the endless lockdowns?
Keiron: Absolutely! It was really good to have a focus and know that we would get together creatively in whatever way we could during that time. We’d swap ideas virtually, and it was a great feeling when the opportunity arose to involve others. I think François Pandolfo was the first person to join us when we filmed the lake scene in which Martin meets his former colleague Fran. We were all so cautious about how close we were supposed to be, but it was outside, so that allowed space. For me, theatre work was nonexistent for a good year and a half, and while I was lucky to have a few writing projects, it was wonderful to interact with another actor again, in person rather than on a Zoom call. The whole creative process kept me ticking over. How about you, Kev?
Kevin: Yeah, one of the funny things about the process was that Keiron and I never saw each other socially; we only met to do some filming. It was so strange, but we had this creative urge and focus, and we made it our policy to refrain from mentioning COVID in Martin’s story. Many people were filming during the pandemic, and we just thought, “We’re not going to mention it; we’ll use it to our artistic advantage in telling the story of a man who’s become socially isolated.”
Q: So, let’s talk a bit about money! Funding any film is challenging, but The Martin Decker Show was made on a shoestring, right?
Keiron: The budget was Kev’s wallet! (laughs)
Kevin: (laughs) We worked with what we had. Apart from spending money on some equipment, we worked with phones, editing software, and mics we already had at home. The people who performed in The Martin Decker Show were friends, and we would have a few beers and a custard slice together down the park afterwards.
Q: Many watching The Martin Decker Show will be reminded of shows like Marion and Geoff. Keiron, can you tell us about the characters you drew inspiration from when creating Martin?
Keiron: I have been writing comedy with a guy I met at college, Giles, for many years. We started doing sketch comedy and have since written some films, including A Christmas Number One and The Canterville Ghost. We always felt that even the silliest characters needed pathos, something to root for underneath the laughs. Without that, comedy is just a collection of caricatures and catchphrases.
What was quite surprising for Kev and me was how much pathos there ended up being with Martin. Initially, he was just a bit of a fool, but the more we developed Martin, the more interesting he became. It was probably a couple of offhand lines in the YouTube shorts that made me think about the character in a broader sense. What if his separated wife Naomi gets a boyfriend? Why did he get sacked from work? What is his relationship with his kids? All that stuff started to feed my imagination and give us more ammunition. I recently listened to a podcast with Rob Brydon, where he talked about Marion and Geoff, their genesis, and how the story was quite desperately sad but funny. Yeah, I guess without us really thinking about it at the time, Martin’s story had elements of Geoff and Bryn from Gavin and Stacey running through it.
Q: In The Martin Decker Show’s bathroom studio, a Kākāpō is painted on the wall. The Kākāpō is a flightless bird, a nocturnal parrot that can be elusive. Can you tell me about the bird’s symbolism in Martin’s story?
Kevin: That goes back to when The Martin Decker Show started as a possible theatre production. Martin was desperate to fly. He wanted to be someone, but was grounded and alone. He tried to fly, but he just couldn’t. The Kākāpō are strange but loved and protected, just like Martin.
Keiron: Yeah, in the read-through we did just before lockdown, themes of depression ran through Martin’s story. He held himself back, feeling like he was stuck.
“We were quite surprised by how many people came up to us after screenings and said, oh, it was really interesting how you talked about men’s mental health. And we have had others who said it made them want to talk about their mental well-being with people, which is fantastic and lovely.”
Keiron Self
Q: I would like us to build on that. There are some big discussions at play in The Martin Decker Show on male mental health and how men often deal with pain, hurt, trauma or fear through escapism. Can you tell me more about Martin’s mental health journey?
Keiron: We were pretty surprised by how many people came up to us after screenings and said, oh, it was really interesting how you talked about men’s mental health. And we have had others who said it made them want to talk about their mental well-being with people, which is fantastic and lovely. Kev, you’d written a play before about a guy building a shed rather than confronting some issues, right?
Kevin: Yeah. It creates the conversation, doesn’t it? I mean, men have certain traits, and one of them is that many opt not to deal with things head-on. In the earlier play I worked on, the guy’s safe space was a shed rather than a bathroom.
Keiron: Men often opt to talk about safe topics among themselves, like sports, topics that don’t require them to open up or do anything for each other. It’s a weird trait, isn’t it? Martin finds security by trying to control his reality through his videos. It’s his safe space away from a reality he would rather ignore.
Q: So, where next for Martin Decker?
Keiron: Well, there’s the new theatre production we hope to tour called “Dadvocate”, which also explores themes of mental health and how male behaviours influence growing boys. We just received some money from the Arts Council to help fund that, which is lovely. Then Kevin and I are working on another story about two blokes starting rival cults. But yeah, I would like to see where Martin goes next. I’d like to see him go on a date with a new lady or, you know, he and Naomi could get back together despite what’s happened.
Kevin: Who knows? We love doing it. When we finished the film, there was a definite feeling that we weren’t done, like you just said. There’s still a lot of potential, I think.
The next screening of The Martin Decker Show is at The Carmarthen Bay Film Festival on May 22.
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