It all starts with a quote from Mark Twain: ‘A German joke is no laughing matter’. But is that really true? Corinna Harfouch sets out to research and test the humour of old, new and future classics of comic German-language and international literature. She comes across the laconic by Eva Menasse (Mein Vater war eine Sturzgeburt), the bizarre by Sven Regener (Frank, bist du das? Du klingst so komisch) and stages the brute comedy of her unjustly forgotten favourite Saxon poet Lene Voigt and that of reading stage artist Kirsten Fuchs.
Meanwhile, Traudl Bünger presents a cultural history of laughter and informs the audience about the fitness of their diaphragm. She also explores what happens when we laugh, whether humour can be learned and why it is almost impossible to translate Loriot into English.
