Sebastian Krämer & Timo Brunke

Shivers have become rare on German stages. Comedians and cabaret artists strive exclusively to appeal to the diaphragm; at best, they may still be concerned with the throat, in which the laughter gets stuck when the jokes are too bitter. But hardly anyone gets the heart racing or masters the art of sending shivers down our spine ...

Brunke and Krämer, songwriters and linguistic composers in their own right, have quickly become aware of each other in the face of an all too uniform cabaret landscape. The fact that they combine the forces of their linguistic magic in one evening happens on rare but memorable occasions.

What these gentlemen don't have at their disposal in terms of imagery, richness of detail, rhyme, meter, diction, musical expression and vocal power to unfold scenarios that open up forgotten chambers of the soul with great relish and only in the spectator's mind's eye. This requires modern ghoulish ballads from our own witches' kitchen, which no longer tell of princes, golden cups and maritime disasters, but of a horror that awaits us in iPods, rented garages, closets, fairground rides and primary school classrooms.

Fasten your seat belts and fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a fast ride!