Learning comedy from the Germans

Stewart Lee says he has learned how to be a better stand-up – thanks to the Germans.

Although the country’s citizens are forever depicted as humourless, the Jerry Springer The Opera creator says their comedy is simply different.

The precision of their language does not allow for the confused or double meanings that much British comedy relies on, Lee argues, nor does their sentence construction help the ‘pull-back and reveal’ gag, where vital information is held back until the end of a joke when its surprise disclosure prompts the laugh.

Lee gathered first-hand experience of German humour while working in Hanover, staging an opera about British stand-up comedy that he co-wrote with his long-term collaborator Richard Thomas.

Although the Germans have no tradition of relaxed stand-up, preferring their comedy in a more formal cabaret style, the biggest obstacles came in translating Lee’s script from English  into German.

Writing in today’s Guardian, the comedian said: ‘Since watching jokes I co-wrote withering in the translation process, all their contrived weaknesses exposed, I have stopped writing jokes as such, and feel I am a better stand-up because of it.

‘I try now to write about ideas, that would be funny in any language, and don't rely on pull- back and reveals and confusion of meaning.

‘Germany kicked away my comedy crutches and taught me to walk unaided. I am hugely grateful to the Germans.’

He added: ‘The stand-up opera went OK, and sooner or later we'll stage it in Britain, in English, where it will make a lot more sense.’

Published: 23 May 2006