What do Princess Kate’s butt, sweat-soaked Bundt cake and the Stuttgart clinic landscape have in common? Right, absolutely nothing. Nevertheless, entertainer Harald Schmidt combines them all in his new Stuttgart stage show into a chaotic, refreshing piece that doesn’t really have a common thread, but it doesn’t claim it at any point. With the program “Schedule Analysis 22/23” Schmidt returns to the stage of the Stuttgart Theater for three dates.
The cabaret artist and show host wants to promote the theater: Schmidt began his acting training in Stuttgart in 1978. The show is supposed to comment on the new program of the Stuttgarter Schauspiel – but it’s mainly about Schmidt and his view of the world. At a snappy pace and with a lot of irony, he comments on current topics and mixes this with cultural insights – the actor keeps coming from Hölzle to Stöckle, as the Swabian says.
In any case, memories of “The Harald Schmidt Show” are awakened. Schmidt himself calls his piece “workshop theater” and a “Powerpoint presentation without a computer”. “If you manage to take people with you, they don’t care where they go,” he says. The 65-year-old reveals how he wrote his French high school diploma by ear, what the Wahl-O-Mat reveals to him and that Hubertus Heil supposedly likes to walk around in skinny jeans. Sometimes he strums “Thank you for the music” on the piano, sometimes he plays the conductor in the song “Rocking all over the world”.
After 75 minutes, Harald Schmidt leafs through his booklet and sees which jokes he hasn’t told yet. “You have to give me a sign when it’s enough – I’ve lost the feeling for it,” he says. Audiences want more – and get plenty of late night on stage. Oh yes, and of course it’s also a bit about the drama program.
