About the work
Komödie mit Banküberfall is the German version of The Comedy About a Bank Robbery, a slapstick farce written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields for their British company Mischief Theatre. Directed by Mark Bell, the play opened at London's Criterion Theatre in 2016, with previews from 31 March and the official premiere on 21 April. It was translated into German by Maria Harpner and Anatol Preissler, and the Staatstheater Nürnberg gave the German-language premiere on 20 October 2018.
Plot
The original is set in Minneapolis in 1958. Small-time crook Mitch Ruscitti escapes from prison together with the guard Neil Cooper in order to steal a precious diamond that a Hungarian prince is keeping in the town's bank. He recruits his former girlfriend Caprice, the bank manager's daughter, and the pickpocket Sam, whose mother Ruth works as a teller at the bank. But disguises, mistaken identities and a staff that keeps getting in the way, from the intern to the caretaker, turn the heist into a chain of mishaps in which more and more swindlers get involved.
Cultural significance
In London the comedy ran at the Criterion Theatre from 2016 until the pandemic ended the run in March 2020; it toured the UK in 2018/19 and was nominated for the 2017 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy. The French adaptation Le Gros Diamant du Prince Ludwig won the 2018 Molière Award for Best Comedy. In the German-speaking world, productions in Zurich, Hamburg and at Vienna's Volkstheater, which gave the Austrian premiere in 2025, followed the Nuremberg staging.