"The story of an evening" with Olli Schulz: On an eggnog in the terminus

You can see it in the way he spits on his shirt in the upper abdominal area. How he initially feels more than asking and then accidentally says "assistant" instead of "crutch": Musician and presenter Olli Schulz is visiting a senior citizen residence in Hamburg, and he has respect, if possible a bit of jitters in front of this place.

He is 91 years old, "a bit erratic". For "The Story of an Evening", the NDR talk show, which is not just a talk show, Schulz spends the evening here with four residents, talking about babble and death and about the life of yore, "simpler, but not had been better.

"The Story of an Evening" is an astoundingly shapeshifting format. In a row, Dirk Stermann moderated it first, last Charlotte Roche stirred with her guests in a hut in the dark forest in otherwise airtight einget Eings-Eingemeachten, and Lars Eidinger led among others Juso CEO Kevin Kühnert and hit star Stefanie Hertel together to to talk to them about self and other images. So far, always celebrities met, zusammengemantscht like a leftover meal that tastes surprisingly good, but will not be nachkochbar, because you can not really produce something like this recipe.

Which sound is the right one?

Olli Schulz has wished to meet foreign, old people. The first nine years of his life he grew up with his great-grandparents, because his mother was very young when he came to the world, but it is clear to him that he first has to rummage in his Tonality drawer, the right address for Mrs. Stark To find Mr. Reimer (97), Mrs. Friedmann (81) and Mr. Zielke (97). That he is unsure if it is a good idea to sing his song about an involuntarily sweaty senior day in the sauna.

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After a few hours, he asks two nurses' wives: is it okay to talk about dying with his round? While he is still tapping through the topics, his guests are more direct. "Basically, this is a waiting station," says Ms. Stark, "a terminus, that's it, but it's a nice terminus."

These are cautious conversations that can be listened to here and that are just gaining through the noticeable wobbiness of the moderator, who has just had to explore the eye level with the others, who also does not really know what to say when the former carpenter masters Zielke tells how he was part of his job once, when a mother of her 19-year-old, dead daughter in the coffin combed his hair again: "And then she puts the comb under the pillow, I will never let go of that picture. " What can, what should one say?

No rambler affability

The best moments of the "story of an evening" were also in previous episodes always those in which the conversation on television followed the same dynamics as a conversation in normal life. Some moments therefore remain uncommented - for example, when Mr Reimers talks about his chemotherapy for the pancreatic cancer, which he broke off last year, and from his forest walks, where he sits on a bench watching the plants grow and then none Fear has more. And Schulz's interlocutors remain "Herr" and "Frau", without the sweaty rancorish affability with which old people on television are often treated like children.

It gets really interesting, when the seniors and senior citizens in the egg liqueur-Absacker start to ask questions and talk with Olli Schulz about his failed marriage - also careful, just as groping.

One would have liked to see something more of this reversal of roles, because the production conditions of such a program are so beautifully blurred here. And after all, it really does not matter whether there are celebrity or non-celebrity people.

"The Story of an Evening" , Friday, 0 am, NDR. Also available in the media library