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A good friend calls me, sounding like he wants to share and check something important. He was talking to his sister this week about the Nieuwsuur headline: Black Lives Matter: Was it a turning point or a hype? His sister stumbles over the title and notices that important parties are left out of this item and that stings. On the...
Every Sunday morning is like a lockdown. The city streets are deserted. I encounter only characters from my stories. Two men and a woman with phone numbers on their chests walk around lost. They no longer know who they are or where to go. A retired writer searches desperately for the pages of a lost story....
After Guido Weijers' Fieldlab turned out not to be a superspreading event, and nobody laughed hard enough at Dolf Jansen to infect others, now also good news from our relations in Poland: over the past month, since the reopening of theatres in Poland on 12 February, 55,000 people have already been to the theatre. Plenty of reason for enthusiasm, as it apparently...
The most recent bulk of cultural rescue money was distributed to municipal councils without the obligation to actually spend that money on culture. Indeed, that so-called 'earmarking' was too cumbersome and time-consuming, according to now outgoing culture minister Ingrid van Engelshoven. (Malicious parties suggest that this way Rutte and Wiebes were willing to cross the bridge, because the money would not...
This episode, number 5 already in an increasingly well-listened-to podcast series, is about the future of theatre. A future after Corona, of course, but also the future as some theatre makers and journalists dream of it. For example, Marijn Lems (NRC) and Wijbrand Schaap (Culture Press) talk about Milo Rau, the high-profile artistic director of NTGent (Belgium). Who came a few years...
At the time Covid-19 flattened normal life, Frank Westerman had fortunately already done his research for his new book. To take care of his parents, he was suddenly living 'at home' again for three months, in his boyhood room on the outskirts of Assen. Writing offered him the chance to escape to heavenly realms: Cosmic Comedy is about the human...
For the first time in almost a year, I feel like going to the theatre again. I am eager, soon, when the theatres are full again. That's thanks to this site's newsletter that I received in my mailbox yesterday. Until now, I was not looking forward to returning to a full theatre. Afraid of...
Wopke Hoekstra, would-be boss of the Netherlands, stood last week on the ice of an ice rink that was closed to all but Sven Kramer. Because of Corona. The CDA frontman received a justified storm of criticism. After Grapperhaus, the country's second top executive who thinks his own rules only apply to others. Last week, Laura van Dolron, played...
For a week or two, the word uncollect has been in my head. An Amsterdam politician suggested selling Roy Lichtenstein's As I opened Fire. Estimated proceeds: 40 to 50 million. With that money, Amsterdam's art sector could be saved and, if there was some left over, work by new artists could also be bought. The politician himself holds...
The best works of art are failures, and it is up to the public to give them a meaning over which the artist has no control, argued comedian Micha Wertheim in an essay for De Correspondent. We thought that was a good topic for our fourth geek podcast. Marijn Lems (NRC,Theaterkrant) does sometimes clash with people who give him too much in his reviews,...
Even in corona time, there is plenty for a culture consumer to enjoy. Take last week. On Sunday (before the big snow started), my wife and I took a walk to downtown Amersfoort. There, a stall not only sells the city's tastiest Latte, but there are also a few....
Last year, he became the second Scot ever to win the prestigious Booker Prize, and that too with a debut novel. The unexpected success of Shuggie Bain has a bittersweet edge for Douglas Stuart (44). For the story of maverick Shuggie, who loses his hapless, single mother Agnes to drink, is based on his own childhood. Shuggie grows up...
That Shakespeare is still relevant after four centuries doesn't even require putting him in modern clothes, but of course it helps. The worldwide success of Ivo van Hove and his 'Internationaal Theater Amsterdam' is therefore partly due to his Shakespeare adaptations 'Kings of War' and 'Roman Tragedies'. Marathons, hours of theatre with food in between. Valentine's Day 2021...
Today we are talking about youth theatre. A genre I myself first encountered in 1994, thanks to 'Mirad, een jongen uit Bosnië' by Ad de Bont, performed by Theatergroep Wederzijds. Marijn Lems got his love for youth theatre from his mother, who, like his father, was a librarian in Tilburg. What we agree on, in this podcast, the...
On social media, and in mainstream media for that matter, it is not helpful to be overly clever. The adage of my father, who was a journalist and taught me not to be afraid to ask stupid questions, has been elevated to a code of honour. You only have to watch 15 minutes of Op1, or WNL on Sunday, and you make...
'There is no other sector in the Netherlands that is as controlled and regulated as the cultural sector.' D66 MP Salima Belhaj sighed this towards the end of the debate organised by the assembled cultural sector lobby clubs on Monday 8 February. 'It takes an incredible amount of work, time and especially money. And the basis is distrust.' The most culture-friendly party of...
It is almost Christmas. Miss Kate and Miss Julia are giving their annual ball. One by one the guests appear, there is dancing, eating (greasy brown goose, marinated rib eye, pudding), there is apprehension about Freddy Malins who is bound to appear drunk again, and Gabriel gives a short table speech as usual. Gabriel fears his speech will be too pompous. He...
Maybe it's the snow, and my little dog that made me so happy. Maybe it's the sledding children in 'The Pit' of Lunetten, and maybe it's the lameness that creeps up on me after so many valiant attempts to keep up the fun of art in times of Corona. But I sat through the first minutes of VPRO's Onstage...
Critics by default have a different opinion than the average audience. That, says Marijn Lems, theatre journalist at NRC and Theaterkrant, is what this research shows. Reason for us to take a closer look at this in the Culture Press Nerd podcast on the deeper details of the art journalist's profession. Another three-quarters of an hour for anecdotes and exciting revelations about the private life of the...
No making shows for a while as if nothing happened, but developing concepts, experimenting, boldly going where no one in this sector has dared to go so far (sorry, I watch a lot of Star Trek during the lockdown). That strikes me as an excellent use of grant money and could also bring back some momentum in these crappy times.
News arrived this week that Andreas Fleischmann, the highly esteemed director of Amsterdam's DeLaMar Theatre, has now officially become director-director of Stichting MusicalMakers, the foundation he had set up last year, a day before the deadline for grant applications for four-year state funding. And that is not allowed.
It schmaltzes. It rattles. It is set in Brabant. And my name is underneath it, with 'free to' as a sham in front of it.
People will not be eager (in large numbers) to go to packed halls again. Many 'old' culture visitors can be considered lost. The cultural sector faces a twofold challenge: to minimise this loss and to look for new audiences even more than usual.
More than 1,500 hours were spent by theatre critic Marijn Lems last year in theatres, in front of TV and, most importantly, with games. That's a lot of time and it raises questions. Questions especially about how you organise your time as a journalist, and how you divide it between watching art for work and what we will call 'normal life'. That's what this podcast is about, for just under three quarters of an hour.
To get a subsidy in the Netherlands, you have to jump through a lot of hoops. Every farmer knows that, and so does every artist. In the cultural sector, for instance, it is important that you have a form of organisation that is controllable and approachable. You cannot have a profit motive either. That is why you can usually only apply for funding as a foundation, so you have statutes, a board and a...
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