Reporter is and remains the best job in the world. You get around (in this case to the Schlachthofviertel), you constantly get to know people, sometimes really exciting, nice, inspiring people, and it’s not uncommon for the idea for the next story to arise at one appointment. This is what happened at the 23rd Sigi Summer Thaler award ceremony in the inn in the Schlachthof. It’s pretty full in the hall – Sigi Sommer fans are loyal souls and have been for many years. The mood: excited, at least.
The first rounds of schnapps go out shortly after seven, according to the motto: always start the evening on the offensive! At the entrance there was already the first gingerbread heart of the season, hung around the heart of Carnival Princess Catherine I. Many familiar faces are there: the always young Carolin Reiber, Otti Fischer in his old habitat, the landlord couple Margot and Günter Steinberg, the colleagues Michael Graeter and Michael Schilling from Sommer’s beloved evening newspaper and also the descendants of the man who died in 1996, who would have turned 99 this year .
And in the middle of the hustle and bustle she sits, the next story: Gerti Guhl, the ex-landlady of the Fraunhofer Schoppenstube, which is rightly still shrouded in legend. She looks good, seems younger than her mid-70s. It’s not yet clear that this will be a special evening for her, but unsurprisingly she has another appointment ready: Friday, from 7.30 p.m., on the first floor of the Antonius -Tenne on Plinganserstrasse. What’s going to happen there? What was always going on with Gerti: “The night is not just for sleeping…”
But let’s stick with the first story: Jürgen Kirner, the Upper Palatinate folk singer, actor, cabaret artist, author and presenter, is awarded the coveted silver thaler. Martin Frank gives the laudatory speech – the first of his life, as he admits – as a return coach, so to speak: Five years ago, Kirner eulogized the then 26-year-old Frank at the award ceremony for the Bavarian Cabaret Prize. When the request came from the organizing Narrhalla, Frank, Sigi Summer Prize winner 2021, initially thought: ‘Can’t you think of anyone else? Do we have to start all over again with the award winners?’
Of course it was just fun. Of course, Frank warmly begrudges his sponsor the award, recalls his first stage experiences as a talking snake in the nativity play at the parish church of St. Johannes zu Hemau near Regensburg, and describes the early sixties man as a “young-at-heart talent and entertainer with content” who, with the “Brettlspitzen” I moderate one of the Bayerischer Rundfunk’s formats with the highest ratings and celebrate 30 years on stage with his Couplet AG this year. “If you’re thinking ‘Yeah, what a businessman!’, you’re right.” Of course it was just fun, of course. But it’s nice when no one can talk into your eulogy!
In addition to the presentation of the thalers by the Narrhalla board, who as always dressed in red carnival regalia, the award ceremony also includes word and piano games by presenter André Hartmann as well as short appearances by various artists. This time at the start: radio woman Marion Schieder alias “d Schiederin”, Viktoria Lein from Kazakhstan, who wants to sing for Germany at the next Eurovision Song Contest, and the feel-good combo “Conny and the Sunday Drivers”. With its snappy economic miracle hits, it turns out to be a ‘perfect match’ for the surprisingly lyrical Silver Agers in the room.
The first few bars are enough and everyone is singing and swaying – it’s logical that Gerti Guhl’s table sings the loudest. It wouldn’t surprise anyone if she pulled the shrink-wrapped song lyrics out of her pocket. When “Seaman, let the dreaming” is played, one of those hymns from the pub, tears well up in your eyes. Always this melancholy! Still a long time until Friday…