One could hardly believe their eyes: The "singing gentleman cake" in the Reich Chancellery! And then also in a mustard-yellow training suit! When he embodies this character in Dani Levy's film farce "My Führer" in 2007, Helge Schneider elicits what he always elicits: irritation. Can he do that? He, the anarchist, the buffoon, the great improvisor? He can.
In contrast to other actors, Helge Schneider sees his role as Adolf Hitler only as one facet of his work. Thinking in boxes doesn’t suit someone like Helge Schneider. This man is jazz. Or better: free jazz. In everything he does. Schneider, who was born in 1955 in Mülheim an der Ruhr and was already working with instruments like piano and cello as a child, is a jazz musician, cabaret artist, comedian, actor, author, filmmaker – in short: a total work of art. He didn’t need a high school diploma for this career; two semesters of concert piano at the Duisburg Folkwang Conservatory are noted in his biography.
His life seems like a big "Let’s see." In the 1970s, Schneider enjoys standing in the local Eduscho stand-up café, eavesdropping on the "Oppas" at the next table, who share their knobbly daily philosophy, and unconsciously collects material for his later stage performances. In the 1980s, he consistently turns to jazz, plays with Albert Mangelsdorff, and composes film music for the director Werner Nekes.
Nekes also casts him in the leading role of the pop bard "Jürgen Potzkothen" in "Johnny Flash" (1986). In the comedy, Schneider also takes on the role of a certain "Christoph Schlingensief", a chaotic pop singer with death metal tendencies. Additionally, during those years, he works for the real Schlingensief in his films "Menue Total" and "Mutters Maske." Together with Nekes, they are, as Schneider would put it, "the three funny twos" of the then Mülheim underground art scene.
From the beginning of the 1990s, Helge Schneider becomes known to a wider audience under his stage name "The Singing Gentlemen's Cake." This is due to the comedy boom of the time as well as Schneider's infantile no. 1 hit "Katzeklo." With the simple little song, he wanders through shows like "RTL Samstag Nacht" or "Schmidteinander"; equally disturbing and delightful to his audience. After an appearance on "Wetten, dass...?" half of Germany knows him, and many of the new fans rush to the cinemas for Schneider's western interpretation "Texas." Filmed in the settings of the Karl May Festival in Elspe, Sauerland, this recorded children's birthday party tells the adventures of Doc Snyder (Schneider), who rides through western clichés in a blue polyester suit and sombrero, and reads to his horse from the horse-girls magazine "Wendy" by the campfire in the evening.
Other films like "00 Schneider" or "Jazzclub – The Early Bird Catches the Worm" follow, but Schneider keeps being drawn back to the stage. At times he is annoyed by his own success. To the comedy audience, which demands "Katzeklo" loudly for the umpteenth time at his concerts, he responds playfully and defensively. Either he tells something completely different or plays jazz consistently for 90 minutes. Nevertheless, the venues are full.
The stage is and remains Helge Schneider's center of life and work; there he can do whatever he wants. If needed, he stretches silly little songs from 3 to 20 minutes, often veers off the path while telling and playing, gets lost in a piano solo, or giggles at himself. An extraordinary artist – as the jury of the NRW Art Prize 2023 also determined.
His penchant for linguistic Dadaism is reflected in the titles of his songs, albums, and tours: "Candy from Sausage," "Egg Salad in a Rock," "Wullewupp Potato Soup," "I Made a Mistake!" The latter is a program, but not a problem. "Made a mistake" usually means for Helge Schneider the beginning of something new. Be it within a song or within a life. He simply enjoys trying out the unknown. Suddenly, he writes autobiographical books like "Guten Tach!", stages "Mendy – the Musical" at the Bochum Schauspielhaus, or sits as an alleged Wehrmacht soldier in an interview on Alexander Kluge's nightly TV culture experiment "dctp." As mentioned – the man is free jazz. Dixieland, that's the others.
