In 1957, Osvald Helmuth appeared on stage as Nielsen, a small-time draper from Aaboulevarden, and presented his letter to the Russian Prime Minister Bulganin. With downplayed humour, Nielsen's problems with a leaking roof from which water dropped down onto his pickled cucumbers were drawn into the cold war of the superpowers. These problems became Nielsen's (and Helmuth's) argument as to why Bulganin should promise that there would not be a war...
... to have an opinion
Before Helmuth's song, Liva Weel sang Poul Henningsen's (PH) They bind us hand and mouth, in the spring of 1940.
"If the song is to be a weapon, as it has always been, also in issues of high policy, then you must both amuse and have an opinion," wrote PH in the catalogue of the performance. He had been forced to alter a considerable part of the text due to the censorship that accompanied the German occupation of Denmark during World War II. Through Liva Weel and her way of presenting the song, he still said what he wanted to say: "... you cannot bind spirit" and "We have an inner fortification here" were some of the words that first silenced the audience, then had them up on their feet to give the artists a standing ovation. From that moment the song had changed the world.
... to amuse
With Kellerdirk's Schoolmates, 1956, and Dirch Passer's The finger act, 1974, the intention to change the world - to have an opinion - has been pushed in the background in favour of the wish to amuse.
Both Kjeld Petersen and Dirch Passer were born comedians. Together they were the born comedy duo: Petersen as the short, dynamically working whirlwind and Passer as a colossus of gigantic immovability. In the sketch Schoolmates we follow them through the changing situations of a conversation. From the time they meet and think they are old schoolmates until, six minutes later, they discover they are not.
In The finger act, a rhythmical and gibberish-spouting Dirch Passer folds out the story of a man and his discovery of his powerful fingers. Everybody knows fingers: we all have them - as many as ten. But Passer's fingers are fantastic. Apart from the usual features, they also contain a wealth of surprises. Can be hidden, turn up again, be halved, become spectacles - and raise or lower the level of his voice.
Perhaps The finger act doesn't change the world. But it is world art that makes the world more of a fun place to be in.
Lone Nyhuus is a former dancer and choreographer. As a freelance journalist she works for the DR P2 radio programme Teatermagasinet (The Theatre Magazine).
The actors Kjeld Petersen and Dirch Passer. Photo: Erik Petersen/ Polfoto.