Der Tatortreiniger

NDR's Der Tatortreiniger launched in 2011 and ran for seven seasons and thirty-one half-hour episodes until 2018. Every episode was written by Mizzi Meyer, the pen name of the playwright and theatre director Ingrid Lausund, who devised the show with its director, Arne Feldhusen, and its star, Bjarne Mädel. NDR first aired it unannounced in a late-night slot over Christmas 2011; the audience found it online, and the broadcaster ordered more episodes after a Grimme-Preis nomination.

Mädel plays Schotty, a Hamburg crime-scene cleaner whose flat manner and willingness to listen draw out whoever he meets at each job, in episodes that stand on their own and play like two-handers for the stage. He was already a familiar face from Stromberg and Mord mit Aussicht. Guests across the run include Sandra Hüller, Florian Lukas, Matthias Brandt and Fritzi Haberlandt, and Charly Hübner returns in three episodes.

The series won the Grimme-Preis in 2012 and again in 2013, for the episode "Schottys Kampf", along with German Comedy Awards for Best Comedy Series and for Mädel as Best Actor. In 2019 Lausund's scripts won the German Television Award for Best Writing. The BBC adapted the format as The Cleaner in 2021, with Greg Davies in Mädel's overalls, but the original's rhythm, half sitcom and half chamber play, belongs to Lausund's dialogue and to Mädel's timing.