September 2008
Dear Friends of German Comedy,
Let’s not miss this rare opportunity to congratulate our British friends on their sporting success. Winning 19 gold medals at the Olympics was a splendid result and certainly outshone the achievement of the British stand-ups at last month’s Edinburgh festival.
The comedy trade fair’s main award, the snappily named if.comedy Award, has now been won by foreign comics for three years running. No, no, not Otto Kuhnle and me. Irishman David O’Doherty followed in the footsteps of Canadian Phil Nichol and Australian Brendon Burns.
What a stupid, not to say unintelligent, decision! Giving the premium British comedy award to two Germans would have been very shrewd indeed. The festival as a whole and award sponsor Intelligent Finance in particular would have been guaranteed worldwide headlines and a sharply raised international profile.
Admittedly such a move would have cost them a lot of credibility but that’s not the point. In fact, the prize has in the past been won by women, who, according to public perception, are even unfunnier than Germans. And the award survived even that.
But Otto and I knew we were up against it when we weren’t scheduled to perform at the opening press-do of our own venue (institutional racism if you ask me).
We went along anyway, Otto dressed in a full-body sausage costume and me in a Heidi outfit with blonde wig with piglets. We went straight to the bar and started a meticulously executed drinking session, during which we gave fellow performers, journalists and everybody else unsolicited advice and sang nationalistic German football songs.
Needless to say that by the next day word had spread and everybody knew we were in town. Result! Why spend £2k on a publicist if fancy dress and anti-social behaviour gets you just as far?
Thus we got some nice write-ups in the BBC, Metro and Scotsman. Otto even got a nomination for the Malcolm-Hardee Award for dropping his trousers whilst playing Bach’s Badinerie. It’s great how he manages to combine hobby and profession.
If this got you interested: we’ll be performing an extended version of 1000 Years of German Humour from 16-18 October. Again at Questors Theatre Ealing. This time in the main house and for three nights only.
Tickets for the opening night are £9 only and can be bought on www.questors.org.uk or by phoning 0208 567 5184.
Have a great month and let’s hope Hoy, Ohuruogu and all other British Olympic protagonists don’t go the way of recent British sporting heroes such as the World Cup winning rugby squad or the Ashes winning cricketers and keep finding time for training rather than focus entirely on corporate appearances.
Auf Wiedersehen
Henning
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