Everyone Has Stupid Thoughts - A Wilhelm Busch Evening with Frank Roder / Written and Directed by Julia Schmidt

Wilhelm Busch? Oh, I know him! - most people will say.

Frank Roder does present the best of Busch's satires, but in a surprisingly fresh selection. A reunion with Widow Bolte and pious Helene is guaranteed, as is an encounter with characters you haven't met before. No one skewers bourgeois hypocrisy in biting verse quite like Wilhelm Busch - and he does it in a way that feels alarmingly contemporary and still wildly funny. This is no polite reading; it starts as a snowball and builds into an avalanche. Small wonder: the actor approaches the poet with great originality and absolutely no reverence. And more and more audiences are loving it - two hours tracing the threads of a poet's work, catching up with old favourites and finding plenty that's new.

Written and directed by Julia Schmidt