Trout gutting as a team building action, somewhere in a forest hut, poking in Fischgekröse. "You put the knife in the buttock, but stay with the knife on top of the abdominal wall and do not go into the intestines," hostess Charlotte Roche had just explained. She has recently moved out of town and knows about such straightforward rural affairs, and then ex-goalkeeper Tim Wiese stings right away, right where it hurts.
"I read a little bit about you," he says.
"Yeah, because you read like that, do not you?" Roche says friendly.
"What I find blatant - where I've read this ... with your brothers," says Wiese, and Alliance 90 / The Green Party leader Annalena Baerbock, who has read nothing and probably expects a cheerful Rochesche family corduroy, says gleefully: "You have to tell now! ".
And then Charlotte Roche tells how six years ago, on the way to their wedding, their three siblings died in a car accident. There is "The story of an evening" just a few minutes old. The preserves are screwed on, as the fish are still lying on the grill.
NDR / Daniel Bremehr
Tacheles in the forest: Baerbock, meadow
"Anarcho-Talk" is often referred to as this particular NDR format, in which a prominent host (previously Dirk Stermann, now the hosts) invites four unknown celebrities to a special, personally important location.
The special thing is probably that this is not just a kind of "talk", but a real conversation. No concerted sequential queries, but an actual communication, in which one can even maneuver into uncomfortable, rough moments. Of course, all are entered when Roche tells this story, and then Tim Wiese poses the oddest of all possible questions in this context, namely one for route guidance: "Where did they come from - from Cologne or what?"
That's the way conversations really are, but mostly not on TV.
Outwardly and scenically, the setting that Roche chooses for her evening is reminiscent of one of those beautiful TV movie chamber plays in which five former classmates reunite after 30 years in some cottage setting and then kill each other on a whim, or otherwise seriously hurt. Above all, there is always a slight "everything-can-happen", not scary, but unusually indefinite. The evening is wonderful, you would want to sit down immediately, even that is rather rare in TV talk rounds.
Real is really good
NDR / Daniel Bremehr
Roche, Fisch, Stadlober: Not only trout is filleted
Roche fillets the fish for actor Robert Stadelober, because at home he always does his wife's job, for actress Christine Neubauer too, because otherwise she would have to get her glasses, and then they talk about the fear of death and the dying of their parents.
It's the big, heavy toppings that are negotiated in the forest hut, but broken down to normal human size. Between the discussion sequences each participant gets his own short solo talk in the semi-darkness, in which he addresses a topic, where he or she has to crack.
Baerbock says that she is afraid of missing out on her own life because of sheer necessities: how often do you do what you really enjoy doing? In between, wood is hacked, biceps are felt, Tim Wiese does not know who Markus Söder is and tells that he is "scared" of terrorist attacks, of refugees who come to Germany "to make mischief here".
And even with this topic, the conversation does not tip over in a placard, but remains a genuine exchange. An evening in the woods does not make anyone a new person, host Roche sums up later, but maybe one opens his visor for a moment, "we look at ourselves and are surprised". And the viewer likes to watch.
"The story of an evening" with hostess Charlotte Roche can be viewed here in the media library. Next Friday actor Lars Eidinger is the host, and this episode is already available online.