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The crime scene cleaner is called "The Cleaner" on the BBC and is played by Greg Davies
Photo: BBC / Studio Hamburg UK
Of all the German comedy series in recent years, both better and worse, "Der Tatortreiniger" is the most German and the most British at the same time. The most German because, in the form of the eponymous crime scrap cleaner Schotty, it leads into ever new milieus and leads social debates there: about veganism and the value of literature, about being rich, about smoking, about esotericism and loneliness. German, too, because the series consistently leads these debates, but never doggedly. The opponents do not give each other anything, the arguments - for example whether if you eat animals because they are not conscious, you could also eat Alzheimer's patients - are tough, but not in hatred.
The most British German series is because British sitcoms have always had what could be called "social awareness." While US comedy series withdrew to single-family middle-class scenarios at an early stage, British comedy series placed emphasis on differentiated social representations from the start. The politicians cursing like the tinkerers in "The Thick of It" are worth no more or less than the junk collectors in "Steptoe & Son", the small crooks in "Only Fools and Horses" or the number pushers in "The Office". Anyone who watches British sitcoms, at least the better ones, actually gets a feel for the substance of the country amid all the follies and vulgarities.
Just like in the "crime scene cleaner".
In 2011 it started almost ashamedly in the deepest night program of the NDR, then expanded by three to four episodes annually until 2018 with increasing success to at least slightly better broadcasting slots, it was the first series that Bjarne Mädel after his breakthrough role as the likable, screwed-up loser Ernie in »Stromberg «(ProSieben) had to shoulder alone as the main actor.
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"Stromberg" was based, which was at first no less shamefully concealed, on the very "Office" in which Ricky Gervais satirized British office culture for two and a half seasons.
Only a threatened legal dispute forced the German production company to admit the copying.
This shows a system: series concepts were, let's say, more imported to Germany, especially comedic ones.
Shepherds and cops
The best-known case: “A heart and a soul”, based on “Till Death Do Us Part”, in which Wolfgang Quantity translated the characters and their quirks one-to-one into German.
In general, people liked to steal, especially in the seventies and eighties.
Parts of the concept of Michael Pflegehar's »Klimbim« are borrowed from the American variety show »Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In«.
"Harald and Eddi" with Harald Juhnke and Eddi Arent, was by and large "The Two Ronnies".
And even »Derrick«, the most German of all crime series, was based in its original concept on Peter Falk's »Columbo«.
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The way the other way around was difficult.
Although the original »Derrick« was sold in almost 200 countries, it was not re-shot there.
Grünwald villas are only found in Grünwald.
After all, a remake of "Inspector Rex" has been going on in Canada for three years.
Shepherds and cops - so, one has to fear that, is the image of Germany's television abroad.
Crime scene cleaner with vehicle and utensils, German version
Photo: ARD
In this respect it is remarkable, but not surprising, that »Der Tatortreiniger« is currently undergoing an English remake under the title »The Cleaner«, also by the big aunt BBC - produced by a Studio Hamburg subsidiary, by the way.
The hope with which you enter this project as a viewer (great series is being re-shot by a comedy-experienced broadcaster) is unfortunately only partially fulfilled.
Body size as the main gag
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Crime scene cleaner with vehicle and utensils, English version
Photo: Ryan O'Donoghue / BBC / Studio Hamburg UK
Much is formally similar: the opening credits (with different, but similar-sounding music), the already slightly rickety delivery van, the huge suitcase with cleaning chemicals and the mostly rather stubborn people whose death has to be wiped out, the plots that look like a chamber play unfold in different locations.
Schotty's name here is Paul Wickstead, aka Wicky, and is played by Greg Davies, who is also the author of the series - two of the six episodes of the first season are direct remakes of German episodes.
The difference doesn't just start with the script, it starts with Davies himself. He's a giant of over two meters and not necessarily slim, in short: a force of nature. Where Bjarne girls Schotty was able to sneak into the various milieus with dull empathy, always at eye level, Davies breaks into the episodes without any delicacy. The chemical club in his cleaning case is an offer at Mädel. With Davies, she's a threat.
Davies' height was a recurring side issue in his stand-up specials and his own series "Man Down". In "The Cleaner" it is elevated to the main gag through the casting. Unfortunately for someone who tends to tire. Also because the camera regularly fails because of him. Even in the first episode, it is difficult for her to get Davies and the almost half a meter shorter Helena Bonham Carter together as a murderous widow. The wheelchair driving Ruth Madeley ("Years and Years") almost disappears next to Davies in episode three.
"The Cleaner", as it can be seen visually, is the Greg Davies Show, and its humor is clearly different from that of Ingrid Lausund, who as Mizzy Meyer wrote all of the scripts for the "Tatort Cleaner".
Even "Man Down", in which Davies processed his own experiences as a teacher, was sketchy, slapstick-like and often vulgar.
The two episodes that Davies adapted directly from Lausund for the "Cleaner" are not reduced by all, but by significant parts of their dialogue battle.
There is also a wheelchair race and a fight with a bitchy cat.
Not good for pub talk
How more value is placed on visuality in general: quite a few slo-mo sequences for half an hour, and even more detailed, disgusted crime scenes than in the original. Davies undoubtedly likes verbal battles, and his characters also talk a lot. But he likes it less than Lausund, or at least doesn't like it from the viewer. Instead, cakes actually fly through the air several times, Davies is stuck in the bathroom window and a valuable book ends up in the dirty water-filled cleaning bucket - as if you were at Didi Hallervorden's.
It is nice in itself that remakes can be, are allowed and are completely different from the original - see, besides the already mentioned »Office«, the NBC series »Superstore«, which is semi-unofficially based on the Sky sitcom »Trollied« , but they are far out of date in their wealth of ideas and figure drawings. Unfortunately, this otherness in the case of the “Cleaner” is primarily a step backwards: What one learns about the Germany of the Merkel era in the “Tatortreiniger”, one does not learn about the post-Brexit Little Britain in the “Cleaner”. "The crime scene cleaner" is suitable for continued conversation in a bar - this is probably one of the reasons why it has conquered an audience apart from the handful of people who watch the third party at three o'clock in the morning. "The Cleaner" is funny, but it doesn't have that aftereffect. Off, credits, and off.
At least some of the guest actors are positively remembered.
David Mitchell, who last played a great bad tempered Shakespeare in Upstart Crow for three seasons and one play, plays a great bad tempered writer in episode two.
It also has one of the few updates that is really good for the script.
While said author covers the blood stains with newspapers in the German episode, Mitchell's character takes wrapping paper - after all, who still reads newspapers today?
But such details are rare.