His first appearance on stage was with a school theater group where he also started to write his first own texts. In 1986, he and Frank Küster founded the cabaret-duo V.E.V.-K.Barett. Their first official appearance on stage was part of their program called "Haben Sie sich ihre Schranknummer gemerkt?", which can be translated as "Have you memorized your locker-number?". In 1987, he appeared for the first time as a cabaretist. In 1989, the duo developed their second stage program "Pralle Pracht" (lit. bulging opulence) and after a name change in 1990 to V.E.V.Kabarett the duo performed their third stage program "Schrille Stille" (lit. sharp silence). The last project of the group called "Zipfeltreffen", which is a play on words in German (Gipfeltreffen = summit conference whereas Zipfeltreffen = summit of dicks), followed. In 1994, Nuhr started his first solo-project called "Nuhr am Nörgeln". (This program title contains, like most of Nuhr's titles, two different meanings. It could be literally translated as "just grumbling" or as "Mr. Nuhr is grumbling" because the German word "nur", meaning "just", is homophonic to Nuhr's last name.) From 1982 to 1992, he was an active artist, and several of his works were exhibited in the
Rhineland. He has since gained notoriety for his numerous television appearances on
Die Harald Schmidt Show,
Genial daneben,
Schillerstraße,
Quatsch Comedy Club (Channel Pro7) and
7 Tage, 7 Köpfe (lit.
7 days, 7 heads) on the channel
RTL. In an interview with the newspaper
Westdeutsche Zeitung in 2006, Nuhr was asked how he had developed his unique style: "I started my solo career because the manager of a
theater in Mönchengladbach had talked me into it. He allowed me to perform on his stage and directed me. While I was practicing my program more and more requisites went missing because he took more and more of them away. So when the day of my first performance came close there were no requisites left anymore. I just stood there and talked to the audience. This is how my very own style was born. At first I thought that this could not work at all, but the fewer requisites I used, the better it finally worked out for me. So I thought that this is what I should do: not use any requisites but talk to the audience in my own way." (28 January 2006). In 1998, the stage program "Nuhr weiter so" (lit. "Simply go on") received an award: the Deutsche Kleinkunstpreis in the category cabaret and in 2003, he received the (German comedy award) for best live performance, making him the only person who received both of these well-known German awards. His performance "Ich bin's Nuhr" was visited by approximately half a million people. After presenting a humorous review of the year's events in 2004, he has been broadcast on
ZDF with a similar TV show at the end of every following year. Nuhr presented the
German comedy award for the first time on 24 October 2008 and did so over the course of the following five years. Since 3 October 2009 his four-part comedy series has been shown live on ZDF on four Tuesday evenings. In 2009, Nuhr was asked whether he would like to participate in the album "A Tribute to Die Fantastischen Vier" for the 20th anniversary of the group
Die Fantastischen Vier. It is a compilation album with varied artists covering songs of the hip hop group from
Stuttgart. Nuhr recorded the song "Buenos Dias Messias" in his office room. In this song he played all the instruments himself and recorded it with his equipment, which he uses for radio shows otherwise. In addition to that, the album includes a conversation between Nuhr and the initiator of the album project Andreas "Bär" Läsker. From 20 January 2011 until 2014, he presented the TV show "Satire Gipfel" on
ARD. He replaced Mathias Richling, whose contract ended in 2010. In October 2014, this TV format was replaced by "Nuhr im Ersten" which was presented by him as well. Nuhr produced a two-part TV special concerning the
2010 FIFA World Cup. In doing so he referred to the topic
soccer in an ironical way. Furthermore, he produced weekly cabaret segments for the radio station
WDR 2. Together with Ralph Casper he presented the quiz show "Null gewinnt" in the early evening time slot of ARD from July to March 2013. In the year 2012, Dieter Nuhr was mentor for the "ARD-Themenwoche" (a special TV format, covering a weekly particular topic) with an emphasis on the topic: living with death. To this TV format he contributed the television show "Nuhr am Leben" which was recorded in the St. Elisabeth church in Berlin Mitte and broadcast on ARD on 19 November 2012. In 2013, he took part in the "ARD-Themenwoche" again, when the topic "fortunately/I'm glad that..." was concerned. His broadcast "Nuhr im Glück" was recorded in the orangery of the tropical
Botanical Garden, Potsdam and was aired on 22 November 2013. The ARD-Themenwoche 2014 will be about tolerance and Nuhr will perform his stage program "Nuhr mit Respekt" (Only with respect) and will be broadcast from the
Jewish museum Berlin. Nuhr can also be seen regularly on the TV show "Mario Barth deckt auf!" in which he and the German comedian
Mario Barth show examples of projects which only wasted tax money. In 2014, Nuhr received the Jacob-Grimm-Award. The Jury praised Nuhrs way of performing and his intelligent form of cabaret. His stage programs were eloquent and his punch lines hit. Though the main aspect of his work was not the extraordinary quality of his speeches but also his ability to perform critique with and through language and the way Nuhr invites the audience to think about how language is able to influence our thoughts and emotions. Nuhr's stage program
nuhr in Berlin (the title is a pun on
nur which is German for
only) is the first German stand-up comedy which was created exclusively for
Netflix. == Islamic cabaret controversy ==