Außer Kontrolle - Premiere

Comedy by Ray Cooney
Directed by Nils Engelhardt

A state affair hanging by a thread: when the truth spirals out of control

What does an upstanding government minister do when a planned romantic escapade with the opposition's secretary comes to a sudden - and above all lifeless - end? For Richard Hill, a luxury suite at the Westminster Hotel becomes the setting for a nightmare that threatens to drag his political career and private life into ruin. Instead of a thrilling tryst, the mismatched pair are met with a rather more alarming discovery: a supposed burglar is stuck, motionless, in the suite's broken sliding window. Calling the police is out of the question for the minister - the secretary's presence would trigger a scandal no government could survive.

In this moral dead end, Richard's loyal but chronically out-of-his-depth secretary George West turns out to be the last - if least reliable - lifeboat. George is promptly appointed crisis manager and must take on roles for which he has neither the talent nor the nerves. What follows is a masterfully constructed escalation: to cover up the corpse - who turns out to be surprisingly mobile - and conceal the affair, a web of lies is spun so intricate that the protagonists soon lose track of it themselves.

Martin Betz as Richard Hill (government minister)
Eckart Northoff as hotel manager
Joachim Kümmerlehn as hotel waiter
Antje Stark as Jane Cooper
Nils Engelhardt as the body
Sven Mallon as George West (Richard Hill's secretary)
Luca Riegler as Ronnie Cooper (Jane Cooper's husband)
Jasmin El-Salib as Pamela Hill (Richard Hill's wife)
Britta Lewerenz as Sister Foster