Kurt Tucholsky – His Life and Songs

Edited and staged by Irving Wardle

and Helena Kaut-Howson

Kurt Tucholsky (1890 – 1935) was described by one fellow-writer as “a little Berliner man trying to stop a catastrophe with a typewriter.” He was an all-round journalist, and editor of Berlin’s leading left-wing weekly, die Weltbühne. As a savage critic of German militarism, old and new, he saw it all coming before falling silent in exile and committing suicide in 1935. Not content with three journalistic pseudonyms, Tucholsky had a fourth and hugely productive alter-ego – Theobald Tiger – a poet and writer of satirical and lyrical verses, put to music by himself or composers such as Fritz Hollaender, Richard Heymann and Hanns Eisler. The songs tell the story of his times and the perennial experience of solitude in a big city at a time when things are changing for the worse. They also make you laugh.  

First performed at Arcola Theatre January 2010

Saturday January 30th 5pm

£5