Review: Henning Wehn, York Barbican, Great Yorkshire Fringe, July 26

BREXIT is hardly a barrel of laughs - unless you are in the company of Henning Wehn, the self-proclaimed German comedy ambassador.

Wehn, who moved to England in 2002, is arguably one of Germany’s finest exports and a welcome one. He’s a sell-out on the stand-up tour and regular on TV, including BBC1's Question Time.

In York for two nights only as part of the Great Yorkshire Fringe, he hit us with his new show: Get On With It!. No prizes for guessing what that was about.

In a week when Britain got a new Prime Minister and the prospect of a no-deal Brexit loomed closer, Wehn had more than enough material for his hour-long show, which kicked off after his own 20-minute warm-up brimming with what he calls “Teutonic jolliness”.

He mused how we Brits would like the format: “First half, second half, penalties, then you go home!”

Oh yes, he couldn’t resist baiting the audience with jibes about football and the war (the show could have been subtitled: Get Over It!).

But the best gags and stories were reserved for Brexit. He wondered how we would have all voted in the referendum had the question been: “Do you fancy some never-ending palaver?”

Much of Wehn’s charm is in the delivery; he speaks English like a Cockney with a German accent, which he lays on thick for the laughs.

Encouraging us to chuckle about Brexit, which he assures us will be a blink in history and work out just fine, he said: “We will not live through anything funnier than what we are going through now.”

With Boris Johnson now our PM, that sounds rather ominous indeed!

Maxine Gordon