Not with a bang, but a whimper

That’s globalisation for you: Brits become cooks, and Germans comedians. Not for very much longer, and we will be facing Taliban lapdancers! But, believe it or not, German humour can be as funny as British food yummy. Here comes Mathias Tretter, who is going to show you that Germany has more to contribute to international comedy than just Hitler (who was Austrian, anyway). And the mad hun is even having a shot at it in English!

Tretter has got a master’s degree in English Literature, received after, as he puts it, »twelve marvellously gleeful years of studying. When it comes to socially accepted idleness, you just can't beat German universities.«

However, Tretter did not waste all of his youth on education. Obviously, there were spells of learning, too. He spent a year in Scotland, working as an assistant teacher in an Edinburgh secondary school; not just any school, though, but an educational challenge rough enough to get a mention in Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting. »Eighty percent of my material and hundred percent of my language come from this job«, he says. »T’ was a fuckin’ experience wi’ those mental cunts, you ken.«

But don't worry: Mathias Tretter will not sound too Scottish. »More like a light Glaswegian with a heavy southern German accent. In any case you’re in for a multilingual treat!«