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Thousand Years of German Humour
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Thousand Years of German Humour
Award-winning German Comedy Ambassador Henning Wehn is joined by Otto Kuhnle, the Fatherland's foremost Yodelmeister. Teutonic jolliness at its best.
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Original Review:
This disappointing return to the Fringe for the Teutonic duo of stand-up Henning Wehn and variety act Otto Kuhnle, sticks to an unwieldy format that inhibits their respective talents, leaving both British and German elements in the audience noticeably restless on the evening I saw them. After an initial flurry of accordion from Kuhnle, and a few characteristic jibes at the English and Scottish football teams from Wehn, lamenting Germany’s several ‘months of hurt’ in international competition, the pair introduce their premise of a millennium of German comedy, with the disclaimer that this won’t be occurring in real time. Their history lesson begins promisingly enough, with the contentious claim that Germans invented slapstick 40,000 years ago, before leaping forward to 1812 and the publication of Grimms’ Fairy Tales, with Wehn slipping on a dress and pigtails to play Snow White, Kuhnle doing much the same as his wicked stepmother. In his club sets, Wehn often uses national stereotypes as a means to establish a non-PC perspective, one that he invariably extends to ironic sexism. Here, his Schneewittchen becomes the dwarves’ domestic drudge, before the sketch peters out hopelessly, to the extent that you truly question all the effort. A little more stand-up from him, mocking women’s right to vote and the compilation of the sex offenders register is both intermittently funny and undeniably awkward, before he fails to nail the promising setup of his performing a corporate gig to the BNP in Coventry. By this point, it’s necessary for Kuhnle to lighten proceedings somewhat and the ‘funniest man in Düsseldorf’ achieves this admirably by performing Bach’s Badinerie on the flute with his trousers descending slowly to his ankles. It’s a wonderfully silly moment but one sadly not to be matched during his evocation of the car in Knight Rider, full-throated yodeling or a handbell performance of The Scorpions’ Berlin Wall anthem Wind Of Change using a puppet of Knut, the adorable polar bear cub – rather funnier in the conception than the execution. Between these set-pieces, Wehn backs Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan William’s appeal for introducing sharia law into the UK, indulges in a little anti-Spanish sentiment and liberally sprinkles his set with some deftly amusing lashes at Max Moseley. Sadly, while the contrast between Kuhnle’s lighthearted box of tricks and Wehn’s bravely contentious, stilted routines has served the pair so well in the past, here it’s often counter-productive, the switches between the two too frequent and much of the material simply too patchy to be effective. When they exploit their lack of professionalism to satirise the if.comedy award it’s amusing, but celebrate your amateurism and dying sketches too often and an audience might simply begin to appropriate the message that you’re crap. Glimpses remain of why the pair have attracted a cult following and their onstage chemistry is as fond as ever. But crucially, 1000 Years torpedoes the idea of a German comedy canon and certainly; won’t be passing into those slim annals as anything more than an obscure footnote. Reviewed by: Jay Richardson |
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I was a bit drunk when I saw Wehn at a small student venue but it didn't help. He tanked and then tried to flog his DVD. Worst act I've seen in a long time; rude and jarring Joe, September 2009 |
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Have just seen the latest version of the show and its 4.5 stars now. The show is longer for the tour but this makes it better not worse. The bits from the fringe are tightened or dropped and both Henning and Otto are completely at home with the material and the extras written since last August. The contrast between the general sillyiess of Otto and Henning's straight standup works really well. They even deconstruct the comedy of repetition in a way that even no comedy geeks get. Well worth a visit - if they had honed this material before the fringe their musings on an iffie might have been more realistic Andy, May 2009 |
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As anyone who lived through the Seventies knows casual racism is a British comedy staple. Now the Germans have arrived to mine and I guess subvert the same. As Henning mentions in one part of the show - he makes a very good living telling football gags and denying the holcaust. It wasn't until I got home after the show that I realised this was a typical style of style of gag from the fifties. Anyway this is a case of 40 minutes in search of an hour. But the 40 minutes are well worth a visit. If you have seen Henning before you will realise it isn't just football and holocaust denial but the humour of the outsider mocking our foibles esp. our political correctness. The funniest moment of the evening was the audience's shocked reaction to the punchline on snow white. Added to the cultural stereotypes is a huge embracing of general silliness that is almost British. Dressing up as women, silly songs - yodelling all done with a gusto that suggests the footlights or similar. Over all it deserves a three and a half or possibly 3.47684 to give it true German precision. It is no-nonsense fun and well worth a visit even if despite their musings it isn't going to get an if award Andy, August 2008 |
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