Jul på Vesterbro

The well known stand up comedian Anders Matthesen made a Christmas series, containing 24 episodes in 2003.

It evolves around a family that consists of a father (Stewart Stardust) who seems to be a ex sailor that has left his life as a sailor behind but at the same time forgot to leave his bad manners out on the ocean. He shouts and yell like the infamous Captain Haddock with a deep felt love for strong, tepid beer. We are told that his wife is in the bedroom with a chronic menses that makes no contact possible except for a shout "get out of here", that can be felt on the Richter scale, every time somebody tries to open the door to her bedroom. His son (Danny) has just left prison on parole and has brought with him a parole officer (Arne) that is a reminiscent of the hippie culture with such an undeniable trust in Danny that it beats the law of physics. Danny could be a distant relative to Chong (from Cheech and Chong) with his drooling voice and a mind that is so intoxicated that everything, and I mean everything, is funny.

Stewart needs money for the rent and has a plan of selling sausages from this mobile sausage wagon that by the way is a very unique danish culture product. The terror organization "the yellow half- moon " lead by the immigrant Kefir has deceived Mr. Stardust into believing that it needs a repair and we know for sure that dark and sinister plans are being made

As with other "Christmas calendars " some elements are repeated in each episode but with different luck. The supposedly effect that this have is "the moment of recognition " that can feel so cozy and Christmas like.

For instance we have the present he gives to himself each day that consists of a beer he drinks and we have the mother shouting in her bedroom when Steward tries to make contact with her.

Stewart has apparently been brought up by a sadistic father and in every episode he has a flashback that lasts approx 10 seconds where this father says something educative and then raises his arm with a tool in it and starts to hit him. As this Christmas Calender is a comedy I have tried to figure out how this in any way can be funny but must admit that my mind is too limited to understand this.

The force of the episodes is partly that Anders is so brilliant in spotting cultural stereotypes and making them come alive on the television and then making a dialogue that starts out pretty normal but then escalates into something strange and weird either because everybody misunderstands each other or because the ability to think straight is very reduced.

Regards Simon

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This is a very funny, hilarious, absolutely respectless and politically uncorrect Xmas calendar in 24 parts. A great tour de force from Anden but unlikely to have any chance with anybody not familiar with danish language and present social and political conditions. Story is of course completely unlikely but allows some very harsh satirical punches against the prevailing climate in the Danish discussion about Nationality/Globalization and general tolerance. Music/Songs are very good. Anders Matthesen has actually succeeded in transforming parts of his standup show and radio shows into a very seeable miniserie. I give it 9/10.

As a Christmas calendar, this has very little to do with Christmas, but it has just enough mentions of it to convince you that it is in fact a Christmas calendar. It's kind of more anti-Christmas than Christmas. It has a lot of what Americans would call "R-rated material", and it has a thoroughly adult tone. The humor is somewhat aggressive and provocative, just as Anden's humor always is. Some people will definitely be offended, but I'm sure that just as many people will love it, just as I did. The plot is pretty good, but is honestly a bit repetitive in a few of the episodes, but nowhere near as much as Christmas calendars usually are. The comedic timing is nearly always perfect, there are times where fans of Anden will laugh for up to half a minute or more, at just one great joke. The comedy is laugh-out-loud material for fans of Anden, most of the time. The acting is all good, as it is the multi-talented Anden who plays most of the roles himself. In fact, he plays about 15 characters or voices all in all, and he portrays each of them perfectly. The characters are all well-written, they mostly rely on stereotypes, but that's pretty much the point, as that's what Anden relies some of his humor on, especially in this one. The "special effects" in this, I have to mention, are pretty good, when I found out that Anden was playing all the characters at once, I was excited to find out how they handled having him appear on-screen as two or more characters at once. It looks very good, and very convincing. All in all, this is the most entertaining, most funny and most interesting Christmas calendar that I've ever seen, and I've definitely seen my share. Running at just over 4 hours, all the episodes put together, it's an incredibly funny, very anti-Christmas, while still being reasonably Christmas-like, Christmas calendar packed full of controversy, contemporary social satire, stereotypes and Anden's personal brand of humor. I recommend this to all fans of Anden, and it helps to have a decent knowledge of contemporary politics and the likes. 9/10