Without Words

2000s German tv comedy series

Sketch-based series with Die Wochenshow star Bastian Pastewka as different characters, who do not get chance to speak.

Ohne Worte (Without Words) had original concept - main character of the sketches (played by Pastewka) never speaks, although people around him do, so they build up the story, while he just delivers the... Well, not punchline for sure, but the outcome of the sketch.

It was interesting take on sketch show and rather unusual challenge for Bastian Pastewka, who usually was building characters around their mannerisms and the way they speak and here could only deliver comedy via expressions and body language. And it actually worked. Up to a point.

There were two problems with the show, the first one were the scripts, which were very uneven - there were very good sketches and there were some that completely failed. And this is linked to the second problem, which was the pace - it was usually very, very slow. Some of the sketches had a long build up that lead to not really great ending. At the same time there were those, which were too short, the jokes too shallow or just underdeveloped.

Slightly similar idea to Mr Bean sketches, but with Pastewka’s own style of acting. Unfortunately he was only acting in the show and was not involved in the writing process, which could explain why Without Words was just average program that ended after 7 episodes despite decent potential.

Rating	6.0
Funny	6 / 10
Entertaining	3 / 5
Characters	3 / 5
Nonrepetitive	3 / 5