If Brigitte knew that: The premiere of “Three Dragons from the Grill” at the BKA Theater

But hey, haven’t the three of them been traveling extraterritorially for years, as house ghosts at the BKA Theater on Mehringdamm, i.e. in Kreuzberg? Then the booth for their remake “Three Dragons from the Grill,” which premiered on Friday evening, no longer necessarily has to be in front of the Metropol, like Grandma Färber’s used to be. Instead we head east, to Rosenthaler Platz! Daring. District ties lifted.

A continent called West Berlin

For 15 years, from 1977 to 1992, the original series captured the color of a lost continent called West Berlin in 140 episodes – with Brigitte Grothum, Gabriele Schramm and Brigitte Mira, shortly after the late Big Bang of her career with Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s “Fear eats the soul”. With Teufelsberg Filmproduktion, Ades Zabel made fun of the material on Super 8 films from 1987 onwards, which were then shown in arthouse cinemas nationwide. Now, much later, a completely new stage show (director: Bernd Mottl), with many allusions to the political realities of 2026.

The opening song “Wurst” on Madonna’s “Vogue” rushes back to 1990. The flesh-colored bodices that Edith (Ades Zabel), Jutta (Bob Schneider) and Biggy (Biggy van Blond) squeeze themselves into are probably to be understood programmatically and are not accidentally reminiscent of sausage skins. However, it takes a long time until meat actually sizzles here for the first time.

The pension was already too small back then

First the backstory is told: Edith was actually married once, but her lover was run over by the Flixbus on the day of the wedding, and now she has inherited his snack bar on Torstrasse. The threads to the original are only very loosely tied. Grandma Färber never inherited anything, but had to become self-employed due to economic necessity; her pension was far too small even back then. However, that also applies here: Jutta’s pub no longer makes enough money since everyone is drinking Späti, and who knows whether they won’t abolish citizens’ money in five years?

As a notary, Klaus Wowereit has a guest appearance on the screen that could have gotten more out of it. It’s delicious, however, how the group plays with the fears of vegetarian and vegan centrists that meat consumption is somehow “right-wing” (“brown mustard costs extra”).

The real right-wingers come later: appearance of a politician in a telltale blue suit, first name Tino, in tow: a woman named Melanie Trampel, dressed in a martial black hat, who actually owns the property and who has big plans for all of Berlin: golf course on Tempelhofer Feld, triumphal arch at the main train station, and the “Café Trampler” is also to be reopened, five times as big.

It’s silly, often funny, but it also has its flaws. Roman Shamov is once again great when he, as sidekick Harry, desperately searches for fresh sausages while his jacket is so tight that he himself is about to burst open. But the car ride through Berlin, past the Humboldt Forum and the Friedrichswerder Church, seems unnecessarily drawn out. This evening doesn’t really add anything new to the characters of the Christmas show “When Edith’s Bells Ring”, which has been popular for years; Biggy also wears her beloved leopard print, regardless of the season. You don’t really understand the “dragons” in the title, but everything is too harmonious and the three of them don’t hiss at each other enough.

However, the many video clips (Jörn Hartmann), which constantly open up the stage space to an additional level, and the many cover versions of hits like “If You Could Read My Mind” or “Thriller” (here of course as “Griller”) are excellently done. And while the sausages are marinating in Futschi, the husband (Bob Schneider), who was believed to be dead, returns and takes over the place again – with a new face, paid for by the cash register: the bus just dragged him along. So the three women can return home to Neukölln with the U8. It’s best at home.