Otto Kuhnle: Ich Bin Ein Berliner

Perhaps due to the stable state of his country’s economy, the German Otto Kuhnle is a remarkably complacent performer. So much so that it’s hard to discern what exactly warrants his show Ich Bin Ein Berliner. The variety star doesn't appear to excel particularly  at any of his varied activities, or indeed to be trying very hard to. 

At one point Kuhnle starts handing out torn scraps of newspaper to the crowd with a pair of long pincers. As a metaphor for what he offers his ticket purchasers, this is apt except, as he does it, he’s wearing a bottomless cherubic angel’s costume complete with scrappy blonde wig. This, it seems, is Kunhle’s USP; an eagerness to embarrass himself at any cost. 

Sometimes this reaches Borat levels of silliness. Like playing Air on the G String on a flute as his trousers gradually slip down, or performing an alleged folk dance from his home town by swirling a luminous pink sarong about his head and preening girlishly. 

But some cheap swipes at German efficiency, hunger for winning, and the Berlin Wall aren’t enough to suggest an ironic self-awareness. Without his comedy partner Henning Wehn, Kuhnle is hard to categorize in this field. 

There are some delightfully surreal moments, like his tunelessly playing the German national anthem via a bagpipe-clutching stuffed garden gnome. And a magic trick involving vanishing ping pong balls is a child-pleasing affair. But ultimately the clownish Kuhnle gives little more than scraps of entertainment to the adults of his audience.