Ben Bo's Comedy Journey - Berlin, Germany

May 13
3 min read

Tight on money and looking for a cheap route to Berlin, Burt and I found the most cost-effective option was flying to Mallorca first, because Germans love going to the island for holidays. We found a flight on RyanAir (the Spirit Airlines of Europe) and were able to save about one-hundred euros apiece.

We landed in Berlin that Friday at about midnight. We were spending two days in a hotel about 45 minutes north of the city and then spending the next two days (or maybe three) in a hostel closer to the city. In Berlin it was just me and Burt because Boss has an aversion to Berlin (and Germans in general) so he decided to return to France.

We didn’t have any specific shows, but we did have some mics and local shows Burt was on so we figured we could do a few spots and create some contacts. The first few days were cool. We took a train into the city to see the sites and stopped by some local shows. Nothing crazy happened like in Barcelona.

Once we moved down to the city, Burt had a spot on a show that actually took place on a boat, which was perched at the dock. The host wouldn’t throw me on the show, but Burt did well. I met a cute French girl in the audience, and we got to talking. She told me that the wall outside was the Berlin wall, which I was shocked to hear, because I wanted to see the Berlin wall and it was right there the whole time. I was walking right by it and didn’t even know.

I hung out with her a couple of times, but it didn’t amount to much more than light petting and kissing before she went back to France. This time in Berlin was mostly spent getting some well needed rest after the previous week, especially knowing what was to come.

The highlight of our time in Berlin was the last two days we spent there. Burt works remote consulting gigs at times to fund his trip, so he was spending all day doing some projects for most of our time in Berlin. One night I went out alone to check out an open mic. In classic mic fashion it was just all comics, but I did well and was booked on a show for two days from then, which I would not be able to do because we were leaving the day of the show, and I had my dates wrong.

When I left the show, the comics directed me to another bar that had a show going on. I walked into the show with maybe three comics remaining. It was a small dark room, with not a lot of space and low ceilings; perfect for comedy. I was sitting in the back and the host was bringing up the penultimate comedian named Jayden. He looked around the room and asked, “Is Jayden here?”

When I noticed he was not, I said “I’m not Jayden but I will be tonight if it will get me on stage.”

He said, “Would you like to do five minutes?”

I responded in the affirmative, so he brought me on stage and introduced me as “not Jayden.” I did so well I buried the next comic and had the audience thinking it was bit the whole time, which was pretty cool. Our last night in Berlin was one of my favorite sets in a while. The host was a German born Congolese guy, and we really hit it off. He threw me up and when I crushed he was super stoked and wanted to have us back. He said he would host our own show in Berlin, so that was a great feeling. I left Berlin in high spirts, heading on a plane to Poland and then taking a train to Tallinn, Estonia.

-Ben Bo