Comedy Night

Yesterday I had the opportunity to see an English speaking comedy night as part of Koln's Comedy Festival. The reason I heard about it was a co-worker of mine was actually performing. He had been doing some training with a comedy troop and was one of his first times on stage. I thought it would be a lot of fun if not to laugh with him, then maybe at him a little so got a group of people to join in.

So after work I grabbed a quick dinner an met Bjorn to make the trek to the Venue. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't quite cooperative that evening so we ended up speed walking in the rain. With each of us carrying an umbrella and zig zagging under awnings and ducking in and out of other covered areas, I felt like I was out of a musical.

We arrived at the Hauptbahnhof with a few minutes to spare. The only thing was we didn't quite know where the venue was in relation to the station. Fortunately, I remembered that the venue, called Alter Wartesaal, was actually the old train station and when we looked around, we saw that it was actually situated right underneath the current train station. When we entered I could immediately imagine people bussling around trying to catch their rides, but it had been trainsformed The high arched brick ceilings and pillars had been painted black with green lighting. There were also yards of shimmering fabric hung from the ceiling. There was a stage at the far end of the room with black curtains and a typical brick background for comedy shows. The blue and green lighted bar ran along the right side and there were a few chairs and tables set up in the middle.

I thought it was a little exoctic for a comedy club and that's when we met up with our performing co-worker. He shed some light on the scenery by saying the Alter Wartesaal was a general venue used for various events. The event that had booked the hall the night before was actually a swingers party. It was at that point that it all came together and I was quite glad they weren't using black lights for anything.

After all of us ordered our Weiss beers, we sat down for the show was about to start. The originator of the english comedy troop came on stage to warm up the audience. He made some jokes about the Germans and then proceeded to ask where people were from in the audience. I was one of only two Americans there, but you could immediately tell where we were sitting because we were by far the loudest group. That of course received a joke or too. After the hooting and applause, my boss comes bounding up the stage ready to perform. Now I purposely did not mention that my co-worker was actually my Boss until now. Just seeing my boss on stage doing something other than crunch numbers was hysterical to me. His act was very good and a grea way to start off the night.

Next on stage was James. He had quite a knack for making fun of both the British, Americans and Germans all in one joke! I had to "translate"a few jokes from British to American English for our Spaniard friend, but that's what made it more fun!

One of my favorite performers was actually Swedish. He was tall and lanky with a shaved head and thick glasses. His jokes were the most random that you were laughing and wondering how he thought of such things. For example, "Have you ever been walking on a bridge and had the sudden urge to throw your keys into the water? It's a terrible feeling because you know it would be bad to loose your keys into the water, but the urge is so great that you'd rather just throw your keys to get rid of the aching feeling and before you know it, you hear 'plop'... sigh, for feeling better, you wonder where you'll be sleeping tonight." Yeah, I know it's not really funny right now, but to hear him say it was just hysterical.

After the Swedish Comedian we had a short break before the self proclaimed "Sex Icon"came on stage. Apparently Jerry Seinfeld opened for him before. He comes on stage with an apparent Toupe, large thick glasses, white suit, and spats. He sits on a stool, strums his guitar and begins to sing songs about being a sex icon. Pouting his lips and asking the audience to assist in making all the appropriate noises. Odd, but enjoyable.

I can already tell that some of these jokes will be circulating in the office for quite some time.