Party in Mallorca
Heinz Strunk and the Ballermann
It’s a rocky road to assert yourself at Ballermann. photo
© Pep Bonet/Juan Monserrat/Amazon Prime Video/dpa
Mickie Krause and Peter Wackel are the big stars at Ballermann. Now someone comes along: Pierre Panade. Behind the shooting star is none other than the writer Heinz Strunk.
Pierre Panade is the new star at Ballermann. With his hits “Breit in 100 Seconds”, “You shouldn’t lick before it drips” and “Meat is my vegetable” he inspires the German drinking tourists in El Arenal. Although the artist name and song title sound realistic, they are fiction. There is a successful author behind it Heinz Strunk (61) with his comedy series “Last Exit Schinkenstraße”, which will be shown on the streaming service Amazon Prime Video from Friday (October 6th).
About the plot of the series
Trumpeter Torben (Marc Hosemann, the branch manager from the supermarket comedy “Die Discounter”) and saxophonist Peter (Heinz Strunk) are in their mid-50s, unsuccessful and are fired by the bandleader of their dance band (Charly Hübner). On television they discover a report about party stars like Mickie Krause and Mia Julia and decide to put everything on one card: “Last Exit Schinkenstraße”.
A short time later they stroll through said cult street on Playa de Palma, past the “Bierkönig”, and by chance end up on the stage of a club. But it’s a rocky road to assert yourself at Ballermann. The real Krause (“Go get a beer, you’ll get ugly again”) and his sound engineer (scooter legend HP Baxxter) also contribute to this.
“My knowledge of the Ballermann was limited to the typical images from tabloid and television reports. That was essentially confirmed,” says Strunk in an interview with the German Press Agency. He wasn’t a fan of this type of celebration, but didn’t find it oppressive either.
“I’ve been making dance music for a long time and the mechanisms are similar. Whether you’re celebrating a country youth festival with 300 people in Lower Saxony – or in a mega park with 3,000 people.”
Heinz Strunk – from Lower Saxony to the Ballermann
The writer (“The Golden Glove”, “A Summer in Niendorf”), who was born in Bad Bevensen in Lower Saxony and lives in Hamburg, has a soft spot for loser types. His professional musicians Peter and Torben quickly endear themselves to the audience with their awkward but charming manner and their penchant for bad puns.
The Ballermann songs thought up by Strunk are catchy and, according to his own statements, he often worked on them for longer than expected. “It’s like in literature: the lighter something appears, the more difficult it is to produce.”
Strunk’s literary, musical and filmic work is broad. So now a six-part comedy with German drinking tourists on Mallorca. And that 26 years after Tom Gerhardt’s stupid film “Ballermann 6”, which Strunk doesn’t think much of. “In that case I would like to use the word ‘underground’. That can’t be a benchmark.”
For the 61-year-old writer, the series is a special challenge for a major streaming service. “For me, this is by far the most important project of the last few years,” says Strunk and hopes that the mainstream audience can relate to “Last Exit Schinkenstraße”. From his point of view, the requirements are met. But: “If this is not accepted at all, I will probably withdraw from the humor sector for good.”