June 2013

Dear Friends of German Comedy,

Time really flies. I can’t believe it’s June 40th already.
I would have sent this out much earlier but I was waiting for the brand-new No Surrender DVDs and CDs to arrive from the manufacturer. Details below.

By now it’s only three weeks to go until the start of the Edinburgh trade fair and in preparation I’m reading the Bible day in, day out.

Not because I see praying as my only chance at this stage but because I’m going to perform an Authentic German Christmas Do, carols and all. Yes, in August. Why should only people in the Southern hemisphere enjoy Christmas in summer? And the unpredictable, rainy Scottish weather is the perfect environment to carefully road-test my idea.

The show will concentrate on Jesus’s birth, which is mostly a story about bad preparation, the chronic shortage of decent accommodation in the iron-age Mediterranean and Rome coming up with silly ideas to get their hands on other people’s tax Euros. And a donkey called Angela, who does all the work for none of the credit.

They might call the bible the Good Book, but nobody would ever call it the Well-Written Book. Dozens of writers writing in all different languages and no competent editing – it’s the literary equivalent of Alan Pardew’s Newcastle.

Badly written the Bible may be, but at least none of the material I write about it will ever outdate. It’s fair to assume what is funny about the Bible now will be funny next year and the year after that and the one after that and the one after that and the one after that and the one after that and the one after that. And the one after that, too.

Reading the Bible may make me sound all fuddy-duddy, but what have we got from secularism? Talent shows. Loads of talent shows. Britain’s Got Talent, for example.

To give them their dues, Jack Carroll’s success is extremely good news for equal opportunities. As delighted as I am for him, I feel I’m unable to comment on his performance. Commenting on the stand-up of a 14-year-old wheelchair-bound boy, you’ll either come across as patronising or as horrible, which is a shame as I think that little Northern gobshite done ever so well.

On the subject of equal opportunities, I am delighted to tell you I’ll be on the second series of Stewart Lee’s Alternative Comedy Experience, which will be on Comedy Central in February. Half the performers are female this time, a much-needed introduction of positive discrimination in the under-regulated comedy industry.

Comedy is one area where women can really make their mark, unlike, say, the Bible where they mostly just get mankind expelled from paradise and weigh down donkeys.

I am still hoping for a format that exclusively books swivel-eyed first-class pro-European, Cockney-Westphalian wallies with a second-degree burn on their right arm and a third-class degree in business studies on their mantelpiece.

Until then I’ll have to do my own promotion and tell you, again [see above], that you can now get hold of the audio and video release of last year’s show, No Surrender!

In addition to the physical CD and DVD, there’s the option to download the show!

Please have a look at the shop page – it’s been done all professional and everything.

Have a great month and Amen

Henning

Please find below a list of upcoming gigs.