In the context of the manic self-improvement that one is subjected to every day as a good citizen of the coaching society, that didn’t seem like such a bad idea at first: why not make a series out of it, like well-known comedians do other more or less well-known ones and train non-specialist celebrities for their first appearance as a stand-up comedian? For example, Harald Schmidt, the soccer world champions Christoph Kramer and Mats Hummels, Torsten Sträter, the model Lorena Rae, or Hazel Brugger, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach. The choice of lecturers appeared to be mixed – there are also Michael Mittermeier and Teddy Teclebrhan, who is also the presenter and the only permanent member of the five-part show – but it is definitely representative of German comedy. What can you do.
In practice, “One Mic Stand” is unfortunately underground, but that is perhaps still a merciful understatement. The series is grotesquely wrong. Nothing of a show. Although some readers might get the impression that things are so bad that they don’t want to look at them, but just can’t look away either. But that’s not exactly how it is. The makers (among whom the Harald Schmidt Show enabler Fred Kogel is listed as a producer) didn’t even manage that, which, given the long German television tradition of producing irresistible total losses, is really a feat of its own kind.
Compared to the celebrities, even German comedy is funny
Instead, in the episodes, each 45 minutes long, you see a lot of chattering about getting to know each other and sitting around and all sorts of convulsively cut in between, which apparently is supposed to somehow create tension. Only the musical interludes by Teddy Teclebrhan, who is a gifted Gaga soulman, make it seem that not everyone was completely indifferent. The hard, tedious work, which even means only mediocre comedy, was apparently completely avoided. Or was that the actual aim of the series: that the German professionals here, although anything but titans of their art by international comparison, should suddenly appear like titans of their art?
In any case, the stand-up comedians chosen were obviously fabulously untalented celebrity trainees (besides the aforementioned, the dancer Motsi Mabuse and the actor Fahri Yardim are also there), and then they really didn’t get a bit of help. On the contrary. There didn’t even seem to have been enough time or money involved to get the poor people to write a gag or two that even remotely deserved the label. Karl Lauterbach, for example, who in his nerdy stubbornness on talk shows and the Bundestag has already shown a flair for punchlines here and there, begins his appearance with this: “Good evening, my name is Karl Lauterbach. I am the person who has been there for over a year and a half Now she’s banned everything that’s fun. So I’m like your mother – just without the good food.” And after that it gets really lousy. A tragedy. From front to back. “One Mic Stand” seems as if Germany, after being asked by the Comedy-UN to submit its certificate of poverty, thought again: if so, then so!