Düsseldorf. Women cannot deal with technology, men say “soon” and mean “never” and grannies want to feed their grandchildren all the time – the audience to the finale of “YouLiga” at Zakk was not spared such clichés. With their show, nine adolescents between 14 and 18 years showed that they are not scared of the audience – even if a joke does not catch.
“The red button? You push that when your boyfriend calls.” Lila Levkovich (14) explains different mobile phone buttons to her friend Renata Kirzher (15). With 14-year-old Lisa Lubmann those two form one of the teams that competed against each other in four different categories. The three teams from Düsseldorf and Ratingen presented sketches they had prepared, proved their theatrical eloquence in a “solo battle” and pulled out all the stops of stand-up comedy during the “performance” round. A jury of five people, among them a randomly chosen person from the audience, judged each performance.
Beside the all-girls team “Women’s World”, the Düsseldorfer teams “Alleswisser” (know-it-all) and “MMA” participated, too, and won second and third place respectively.
“The form of comedy derby is very famous in Russian-speaking countries” says organizer Vladimir Adrienko. Many of the guests spoke Russian, some knew comedy competitions from their home countries’ TV program. “There is black humor in Russia, too, but it is more accepted in Germany” Adrienko explains. “In Germany you can be more honest on certain topics, but everyday comedy works everywhere.” The 35-year-old helped the three young teams with their jokes, tested the timing and checked what the audience would like best. Because nothing is worse for a comedian than the silence after a joke nobody laughs about. “Some had a hard time dealing with it, but this experience is important” joke coach Adrienko says.
Source: RP.
