Jo van Nelsen // Blick zurück durchs Schlüsselloch

In the organizer's words:

Frivolous chansons between love lust and paragraph frustration
A tribute to Helen Vita & Co.

On the occasion of his 35th stage anniversary, Jo van Nelsen remembers the singer who sparked his love of chanson and literary cabaret: Helen Vita. With her "cheeky chansons
from old France" in 1963, she caused a storm of indignation, but also of sexual liberation. These songs, which had already been sung in the first cabarets in Paris' Montmartre
in the 1880s, are still fascinating today in Walter Brandin's clever German translations with their brilliant lightness and hearty humor.

The German public prosecutor's office banned the Helen Vita records 27 times - but the sexual revolution of the 1960s was long since unstoppable. So this program is also a
reflection on censorship in Germany with many funny examples from the early days of cabaret, including a revival after more than 100 years. The "look back
through the keyhole" also looks at the frivolous pop lyrics of the 1920s and 30s and the bigotry of the 40s and 50s. And with Brecht and Kästner, there are also two
writers with whom Helen Vita worked are also represented.

An all-round enjoyable evening with witty texts, lively music and no fig leaf at all. Against the new puritianism and for the desire for diversity. Trigger buzzer included!

Brilliantly entertaining, this evening roams through German moral history. (...) Jo van Nelsen is good at celebrating this, his smoothness all round, in song and appearance, is exceptional.
and appearance, is exceptional. (Frankfurter Rundschau, 16.09.2024)

Jo van Nelsen takes up arms against the new prudery, like Helen Vita once did (...). In times of woken wretchedness and gendering, he contextualizes his chansons accordingly (and
has thought of) a trigger warning so as not to traumatize his audience priapistically. (F.A.Z., 16.09.2024)