One way to raise a chuckle is to tell people that you are off to an evening of German comedy. If the stuff that’s on their TV channels is a guide Benny Hill would be considered unspeakably cerebral and it certainly does not travel as well as their dishwashers. Flick through a few channels and there’s a whole genre of films in which young women’s clothes fall off in front of lecherous men. Hilarious!

Henning Wehn holds a post in Germany’s diplomatic corps as comedy ambassador to the UK and has been popping up on the radio with increasing frequency lately. He did a splendidly polite job of calling Frederick Forsyth a bigoted, racist fool during the election without using any of those words, a creditable thing to do and on the strength of that it seemed like a good idea to shell out a few quid to see his show in the Leicester Square theatre.

Considering how some people struggle to be even faintly amusing in their own vernacular it takes a brass neck to try and do it in a foreign language. It was a two handed show with Otto Kuhnle who specialises in musical and physical performance. It’s not my stein of beer but the audience lapped up a performance which included Kuhnle doing a headstand dressed as an Alpine an milk maid while a random punter held his skirt together. Rather him than me.

Wehn is a surprisingly subtle comedian. He speaks excellent colloquial English but seems to have mastered his London vowel sounds by close study of Bjork interviews. The conceit for the show is that he and Kuhnle have learned from past mistakes and want to use comedy to conquer the world for Germany, one country at a time. Inevitably references to World War Two are dropped in. He’ll use the Latin American leg of the tour to visit relatives. Boom boom! He points out that when English people talk about winning wars they don’t refer to any current ones.

A real surprise was his use of a football song to point out everything that is wrong with Britain. He picked the one which goes “do you want a chicken supper Bobby Sands”. Having correctly stated that a man on hunger strike has the moral high ground he drew a picture of the men who wrote the lyric sitting in their bowler hats and sashes trying to decide what would make somone end his hunger strike. A bit of fried chicken, chips and can of Coke was the limit of their culinary inspiration. As Wehn noted, a meal like that would make a French person start a hunger strike.

He does not like Billericay much. Does anyone? The place is too big to have the charm of a village and too small to have the character of a city was his verdict. At a show there his promoter made 200 Hitler moustaches for the audience members.His response was inspired. “Bring some shoe polish next week. The headliner’s black”.

If there’s any justice Wehn should end up as a regular on the radio and telly. He’s an engaging, intelligent comic who keeps an audience laughing from start to finish. Try and catch him.