UNITED KINGDOM: German comedy? A joke or isn't it? German Comedy Ambassador Henning Wehn

Record ID: 575304

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: German comedy? A joke or isn't it? German Comedy Ambassador Henning Wehn
  • Date: 3rd December 2006
  • Summary: (L!3) LONDON, ENGLAND (NOVEMBER 23, 2006) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF AUDIENCE WALKING IN / SITTING DOWN; WIDESHOT WITH HENNING WEHN ON STAGE (SOUNDBITE) (English) HENNING WEHN ON STAGE SAYING: "We are really glad to see you all here. Thanks very much for coming and supporting Teutonic jolliness. I mean let me introduce myself briefly. My name is Henning and I am the German comedy ambassador. It's not the easiest of jobs. The British say we Germans don't have a sense of humour. I don't find that funny. But anyway (starts stopwatch) off we go." AUDIENCE LAUGHING (SOUNDBITE) (English) HENNING WEHN ON STAGE SAYING: "In Germany ever since that terrible day when the Berlin Wall came down. Ever since that terrible day, all you can read is that Germany is going downhill economically. And research shows that we Germans are now better liked abroad due to that very economic failure." GERMAN GARDEN GNOMES ON STAGE (SOUNDBITE) (English) HENNING WEHN ON STAGE SAYING: "I liked it much much better- I liked it much better when we were regarded as clinically efficient super humans!" AUDIENCE LAUGHING (SOUNDBITE) (German) HENNING WEHN ON STAGE SAYING: "Tanya, where do you come from in Germany?" (SOUNDBITE) (English) HENNING WEHN ON STAGE SAYING: "From Baden Baden. Baden Baden is in West Germany, so Tanya you are very welcome." (SOUNDBITE) (English) HENNING WEHN SAYING: "When you set the whole stage persona up as being silly or obviously playing up to stereotypes then usually you get quite good reaction. The thing is in a normal British comedy club I get loads of people that come up and say "Hey Henning you played the German card quite well but you are not really German!" (SOUNDBITE) (English) HENNING WEHN ON STAGE SAYING: "How can I explain the East Germans to you British? So the East Germans they constantly moan, they don't get anything done, and they live off someone else's money. Someone told me they are very similar to the Scottish." AUDIENCE LAUGHING (SOUNDBITE) (English) HENNING WEHN ON STAGE SAYING: "There is just nobody willing to work over here but they constantly talk about it. For example that whole concept of "work night out" or "work do" and all that. You explain to me. How is getting s**t faced on a ten pin bowling alley- how is that ever going to improve productivity?" AUDIENCE LAUGHING (SOUNDBITE) (English) HENNING WEHN ON STAGE SAYING: "I am proud to say in years and years of working in Germany I did not make any social contacts!" (SOUNDBITE) (English) HENNING WEHN SAYING: "A certain degree of obsession about Germany and Germans by the British. The good thing about it it is all good natured. I mean it just becomes tedious after a while- "Does mine Fuherer fancy eine pint?" I mean, that's funny only the first eight thousand times, isn't it? It becomes tedious but it is never bad natured." (SOUNDBITE) (English) HENNING WEHN ON STAGE SAYING: "Over here a bit of goose stepping a bit of swearing and you are almost there. And that is the one big cultural difference between Britain and Germany. In Britain, people constantly swear. Over here I constantly swear all day long. But in Germany, people don't swear. Reason being, things work." AUDIENCE LAUGHING (SOUNDBITE) (English) HENNING WEHN ON STAGE SAYING: "There were loads of England supporters in Germany, loads of them. And they were all singing their stupid songs you know? "Two world wars and one World Cup". I mean I follow football quite closely. I don't remember America ever winning the World Cup!" (SOUNDBITE) (English) HENNING WEHN ON STAGE SAYING: "Then prior to the World Cup or any given sporting tournament everybody jumps on the bandwagon and pretends to be big football supporters. Even Prince William- he says he supports Aston Villa. That's rubbish. At least he should have the decency to support his local side- Hannover." PICTURE OF POPE IN FRAME ON STAGE (SOUNDBITE) (English) HENNING WEHN ON STAGE (WITH PERFORMER OTTO KUHLNE) SAYING: "I must say I absolutely hate music. The only sort of music I like is German folk music. Because German folk music keeps it real! So we are going to sing our favourite German folk song!" / SINGING GERMAN FOLK SONG 'IM FRUEHTAU ZU BERGE'
  • Embargoed: 18th December 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVA96LIOQNGHR1VS0ACIHZJE285Y
  • Story Text: London's comedy fans have been forming neat, orderly queues to see a rare act - the German Comedy Ambassador in the United Kingdom!
    Henning Wehn is part of a show called "Four world cups and one world pope" which just finished a ten day run.
    He bills himself as the "German Comedy Ambassador in the United Kingdom" and admits it's not an easy job. But playing on a careful and playful balance of stereotypes Britain and Germany hold about each other, he efficiently produces an enjoyable show filled with German jolliness.
    In his first act of chuckle diplomacy, he has brought over German variety star Otto Kuhnle - as he did at the Edinburgh Fringe - for a display of 'Teutonic jollity'. We can only wonder if as part of the same cultural exchange, Stan Boardman is currently in Frankfurt cracking his Geeeerman gags.
    Kuhnle gives a musical introduction to the show - after all, he looks like everyone thinks a German should, complete with Bavarian hat and oompah accordion - but it's Wehn who properly gets things going, with a blip of his stopwatch to measure precisely his joke-cracking productivity.
    Yes whenever Wehn is on stage, the familiar imagry so beloved of a generation of football mobs and tabloid editors is never far away. Germans are unemotive, humourless, clinically efficient warmongers who secretly harbour ambitions to return to the 'glory days' of the Third Reich - that is if they're not slapping each other's lederhosen in time to the latest David Hasselhoff chart-topper.
    He uses the stereotype quite cleverly: by telling the most mirthless gags, then assuming that the silence is because the audience - who he takes to be as pathologically logical as himself - need the joke explained. It's in this deadpan deconstruction that the laughs lie.
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