Friedemann Weise: Satire in Search of a Home

” “If satire dies, humanity has only four years left to live,” Albert Einstein said to his cat, coffee in hand. “But if—to paraphrase Tucholsky—satire can do anything,” purred the cat, “then it

can also die.” “I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen, as sure as I’m a serial winner of the German Cabaret Award,” exclaimed Friedemann Weise, who dreamed up this scene on a regional express train on his way to a gig in Dingsbums. Finally, he knew what his fifth solo show should be called: Satire Seeks a Home. A clumsy pun—just good enough not to stand out in the local cabaret scene, but above all bad enough to make Friedemann Weise himself crack a smile.

The Cologne-based author, satirist, and musical comedian is now setting out to show, in two 50-minute sets of satire, why life is worth living. As difficult as this endeavor may be, together with his guitar, a screen, and his human mini-clone Friedemännchen, he’ll pull it off. And you get to watch him do it!

Friedemann Weise is a multi-award-winning cabaret artist and has been a permanent member of the heute-show ensemble since 2019. His radio comedy “History hautnah” has been airing weekly on WDR2 since 2021. His mini-radio plays can also be heard in nearly every episode of Germany’s most successful radio satire show, “Satire deluxe,” on WDR5. As a writer, he has written and continues to write for the heute show, extra3, Titanic magazine, and KROYMANN, among others. Friedemann Weise has a photo column in Cologne’s “Stadtrevue” and averages 11,000 steps a day; many of them on stages across the country, where he performs year-round.

IN GERMAN