Common Ground

Available for 348 days

Wolfgang Hessenthaler runs a hot food stall at a Birmingham market with his endlessly patient assistant Vijay. Not a day goes by without a customer asking for some traditional German sausage - but Wolfgang proudly serves Vegan food. His Lentil and Pine Nut Bake is a speciality, so for him, those sorts of questions are the worst of the wurst. He sends those customers – the ones without morals, or taste buds, as he sees it - to rival stallholder Janice whose hot dogs are as moreish as their ingredients are mysterious. She also has a non-hot dog, the yappy Barney, who probably shouldn’t be around a food stall, especially one which is being visited by the council food safety inspector today. In this first episode, Wolfgang is dealing with another health and safety crisis on the domestic front, where his flatmate Mita, who is also Vijay’s party-hard sister, has accidentally unleashed a plague of rodents into their home. Luckily Wolf has some novel ideas for getting rid of them. At the market, Wolf is delighted with new patrons Jolyon and Francis, who seem to be a better class of customer than his usual “riff-raff”, but Vijay finds their sudden taste for nettle salad rather surprising. Could they have another motive? Soon the food safety inspector’s keen eye for transgressions falls on Wolf and Vijay’s stall too. Who has tipped off the council? Henning thinks it must be Janice. But Vijay has other ideas. Starring: Henning Wehn Antonio Aakeel Anna Crilly Manjinder Virk William Andrews Pete Sinclair Written by: Pete Sinclair Additional Material: Henning Wehn Producer: Jon Rolph Production Coordinator: Tamara Shilham Executive Producer: Ben Walker Sound Recordist: Jerry Peal A Hare and Tortoise production for BBC Radio 4