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LEARN ABOUT SWEDEN

Three Swedish comedies you can watch to understand Swedish humour

Swedish humour can be difficult to grasp for newcomers to the country, with Swedes often enjoying dark 'gallows' humour and jokes which make the viewer cringe. Here's a roundup of three comedies you can watch to understand Swedish humour.

Published: 22 August 2022 12:59 CEST
Updated: 26 July 2023 15:02 CEST
Three Swedish comedies you can watch to understand Swedish humour
Johan Glans, Vanna Rosenberg and Rachel Molin record "Kvarteret Skatan" in 2006. Photo: Claudio Bresciani/Scanpix/TT

Kvarteret Skatan

First off is Kvarteret Skatan (The Magpie Quarter), a comedy series from the early 2000s. The show features five Swedish comedians – Vanna Rosenberg, Rachel Molin, Anna Blomberg, David Batra and Johan Glans – who play different characters living in Kvarteret Skatan, an area of an unnamed Swedish town, in a number of different sketches.

Kvarteret Skatan is a cult classic, and it’s easy to see why. One example is the two intensely competitive businessmen in this clip, played by Batra and Glans, who have what at first appears to be a polite and civil discussion about their performance, which quickly becomes an exaggerated display of Swedish conflict-avoidance and passive-aggressiveness.

“I think we can start off with the positive – I thought everything flowed very well on Tuesday.”

“Ah yes, Tuesday, that’s the day I was off sick.”

“Exactly, that’s actually the day I felt like I got the most done.”

“It’s funny you say that, because I actually feel the same way, I was home with a fever and norovirus but I still feel like I got more done that day.”

“Oh, great, then we’ll put that up on the ‘plus’-side then.”

Another sketch from Kvarteret Skatan which shows off Swedes’ love for gallows humour is this classic dinner party sketch, where Glans’ character Martin opens by saying “I think we’ve all done something a bit illegal”.

“Yeah, I’m sure we have,” Batra’s character Ulf says. “I killed a guy once.”

“It was a few years ago so it can’t be prosecuted now. You know what it’s like,” he says, as the group stare at him, becoming more and more shocked.

“A group of guys go to Copenhagen and, yeah, drink a bit too much.”

The punchline of the joke exemplifies another aspect of Swedish humour – making fun of Danes. It ends with Batra saying “but, you, know, he was Danish, so that’s makes it a bit less serious.”

(Another example of Swedes making fun of Danes is in this sketch from cult comedy series Hipp Hipp, where a Swedish professor struggles to understand a Danish colleague.)

You can watch Kvarteret Skatan, in Swedish, here.

Trevlig Helg

Trevlig Helg (Have a nice weekend!) is almost a modern version of Kvarteret Skatan, following a similar format, with comedians Johanna Nordström and Hampus Nessvold playing different characters in the fictional town of Västerköping.

It’s hard to imagine this series working anywhere else than Sweden. First off, there’s Anton, trapped in a series of dates with a man he doesn’t want to go out with, who keeps paying the bill behind his back, leaving Anton unable to break up with him until he’s returned the favour.

Hampus Nessvold in character as Therese from Trevlig Helg on stage at Allsång på Skansen. Photo: Christine Olsson/TT

Then, there’s feminist stereotype Sofie, who is unhappy that her friends’ override her suggestion of a ‘girl power’ hen-do in favour of a “slut theme”, and forces her son to wear a breast-shaped wooly hat in order to “de-dramatise the female body”.

Finally, local priest Björn, who promises to “hold back on the ‘God talk” at a wedding, saying that “I mean, that’s not why people come here, to listen to a load of talk about God!”. When the bride and groom mention God in their vows, Björn interrupts and says “you know, you don’t have to mention God. It’s part of my job to include that crap, but you don’t have to.”

You can watch Trevlig Helg here.

Welcome to Sweden

Welcome to Sweden follows American intellectual property lawyer Bruce (Greg Poehler) who moves to Sweden with his Swedish girlfriend Emma (Josephine Bornebusch). In scenes many immigrants in Sweden will recognise from their own lives, Bruce experiences culture shock after moving to Sweden, such as not realising that he’s not supposed to greet his new neighbours, not really knowing what to do at a kräftskiva, and having a deep meaningful chat with his father-in-law while they sit together, naked, in a sauna.

Lena Olin, Greg Poehler and Josephine Bornebusch from TV4’s “Welcome to Sweden”. Photo: Nora Lorek/TT

Despite being an American-Swedish comedy (which was shown on TV4 and NBC), there are still some insights into Swedish culture which will be recognisable for many foreigners in Sweden, such as the couples’ arguments over why Bruce can’t paint the walls in their apartment any colour other than white, and Emma’s first reaction to her American boyfriend collapsing from the heat in the family’s sauna being “why is he wearing shorts?”

If anything, Welcome to Sweden is a great crash-course in what not to do upon arriving in Sweden.

Welcome to Sweden was originally shown on TV4, and is now available on SF here.

Member comments

  1. Haven’t seen these, I’ll give them a watch. Solsidan’s another one that shows Swedish humour really well (and I found hilarious).

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LEARN ABOUT SWEDEN

Swedish city launches campaign to get locals to say ‘hi’

The city authorities in Luleå in the far north of Sweden have launched a campaign to encourage its famously reserved citizens to say hello to one another a little more often.

Published: 7 November 2023 14:52 CET
Updated: 9 November 2023 05:34 CET
Swedish city launches campaign to get locals to say 'hi'

The “Säg hej” campaign (“say hi”), which aims for a “warm and friendly Luleå”, was launched on October 31st, which marks “neighbour’s day” in Sweden, and involves a film extolling the benefits of greeting others, which will be shown over four weeks in schools, on buses, and in prominent public places around the city,  

The film shows a young man walking past a young woman resting on a park bench and saying “hej”, after which the woman, who does not respond, smiles broadly. It then shows that same woman saying “hej” to an old woman, who similarly does not respond but smiles afterwards.

“Saying ‘hello’ makes people happy and feel safe and secure,” reads the message that follows afterwards. “This is something we can all do to create a more pleasant Luleå. Your ‘hello’ can make all the difference.” 

Åsa Koski, the municipal social strategist behind the campaign, told The Local that the hope was that increasing the incidence of greeting in the city would improve the atmosphere.   

“I think we are a bit more withdrawn than in the south of Sweden,” she explained. “We also see that outside the city, they’re much better at saying ‘hello’ to each other than we are in Luleå, and – I don’t have any evidence for this – but I think we used to also be better at saying ‘hello’ to each another back in the old days.” 

Luleå is one of the biggest cities in northern Sweden and the regional capital of Norrbotten, a part of Sweden renowned for having locals so taciturn that they replace the word “yes” with a sharp intake of breath.  

Koski said that the municipality had drawn on research which indicated that having a wider circle of acquaintances and neighbours, what it describes as tunna band (literally, “thin connections”) was more important for people’s mental health than had previously been recognised. 

“What we want to do with the campaign is to encourage people to say ‘hi’ to build and strengthen these more superficial relationships or tunna band with other people.” 

These connections, she said, made people feel more acknowledged and secure in their communities, reduced the problem of involuntary loneliness, and made conflict with neighbours less likely. 

Koski said that she also hoped that the campaign would contribute towards “strengthening empowerment by giving each and everyone a tool (saying hello) and by that the power to create an (even) better and nicer society”.

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