At its heart, the show finds him attempting to understand his closed-off father as dementia sets in.

By Paul Blinov

Globetrotting stand-up Paco Erhard balances jokes-per-minute with deeper storytelling in Worst. German. Ever. At its heart, the show finds him attempting to understand his closed-off father as dementia sets in. But that story is wrapped in a gleefully anarchic stand-up set, as Erhard enthusiastically riffs on Canadian branding, touring in the pandemic, and puts one lone sound cue to very good use.

The riffier material could use some dialling in—Erhard ran long on Friday, though he clocked it and encouraged anyone who had to run to do so—and he occasionally lost steam while wading deep into crude minutiae. But he’s a strong comic with sharp instincts; a show highlight comes when he doubles back on an incident in a donut shop, exploring it from two different perspectives. And infusing his set with his own deeper familial experience gave it all extra depth.

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