You tell the best story by putting your audience on the edge of their seats right from the start. Using well-chosen fragments, Liesbeth Zegveld managed to build a story in which the climax stunned everyone. Even the excellently prepared Margriet van der Linden sat at the moment suprême with eyes like saucers and chin on...
We had barely recovered from the rebirth of Celine Dion. The traditionally long-winded and kitschy 'Son et Lumière' with which France had this time made the opening of the Olympics a quintessentially French event had also unleashed a storm of protests with a tableau vivant after the sadly just short of famous painting 'The Feast...
The old domain of VPRO, established in decades of Meticulous and Desperate Simplism, Tegenlicht and Zomer- dan Wintergasten, languished for quite a while. Viewer terror fragmented the safely elitist offerings. BNNVARA searched for a tone and didn't find it. Cultural omnivores like yours truly could no longer turn on the TV to 2 with impunity and then, after an evening of content, turn it against...
"The vote for Wilders may be a dissenting vote, but apparently explicit racism is not a dealbreaker for all those people. That's terrible for someone of colour." In the stately Trippenhuis, seat of the Academy of Arts, this high word from Karin Amatmoekrim sounded extra emphatic. She was responding from the stage to a late-arriving audience member, who felt that "we...
In his life and work, the well-known presenter Joris Linssen (1966) experiences a lot and meets many special people. He has compiled the life insights he gained in his recently published book If you go with the flow, you will stand still. 'If you dare to choose adventure, you will be rewarded for it.' 'From taking risks, you get...
15 minutes of television. Theatre Maas, who used to be called Cornald, has managed to get Dutch theatre's biggest party back on kind of prime time television. On Monday 18 September, we saw his recap of this gala of Dutch theatre, which included awards, snippets of speeches and elated actors. I wondered if we could...
On Sunday 10 September, Podium Klassiek opened the season in a very stripped-down version. Floris Kortie was all alone. In the world of public broadcasting and classical music, where things are usually fixed three years in advance, something was up. I felt an end approaching. Podium Witteman had become a fixture here at home....
'While many regional museums are struggling, commercial museums are popping up like mushrooms.' Omroep Wakker Nederland, since we associate 'awake' with 'woke', preferring to be known as broadcaster 'we' the Netherlands, had to do something with 'art'. The opening lines of the first broadcast of 'de Stand van Nederland', their 'research programme', were an instant hit, so were the images: the museum association in the ball pit of a...
The counter stood at 8 minutes and 45 seconds when it went wrong. Pretty fast for a three-hour interview programme like Zomergasten, but Theo Maassen grabbed the record with verve. His guest Alida Dors, the woman who, as a self-taught dancer, grew into a forewoman of Dutch hip-hop culture, and who is now tasked with managing the mismanaged...
Nice how things coincide, on 'Summer Chairs'. Last week, I reported on the BBC breakfast show's Red Bench, and what a torture device it is. On Sunday 20 August, an almost exact equivalent of that semi-circular Red Bank came along in Summer Guests with Kamagurka. This Red Bench was in a Flemish theatre with Johan Anthierens, who in his show 'At...
Adriaan van Dis with an intensely coquettish Renate Dorrestein, who (rightly) got him on the ropes with a few well-aimed pussy remarks. This excerpt from 1991 opened Zomergasten 2023 #4, and it chopped. Nostalgia all around, and during those first minutes of Theo Maassen with animal and children's book author Bibi Dumon Tak, the bar was set high. Would Theo Maassen with this...
Fascinating television, for sure. Cabaret artist Theo Maassen, who is emerging as an excellent interviewer in this Summer Guest year, went 'full Paxman' on Khadija Arib. Following in the footsteps of famous BBC Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman, he pulled out all the stops to elicit a confession from the former Lower House Speaker. It didn't work, and at half past 12, after a very exciting hour of interview television, it stood...
At a little before half past eleven, Sunday evening 30 July, cabaret performer and gifted interviewer Theo Maassen asked world-famous cameraman Hoyte van Hoytema: "What's the question you don't get answered?" Hoyte: "Shit, are you going to close with that?!" It was in the telling finale of an extraordinarily impressive second episode of Zomergasten 2023. An episode, too, in which we talked a lot about cinematography...
The motorhome sank. The theatre group Vis à Vis-inspired studio set of the legendary summer series Zomergasten had had its day. Was probably also because of the new presenter. Theo Maassen is very tall and lanky, and likes to flap his legs, so he would never have lasted without a wet suit to spend six summer Sunday evenings on the...
The Zilveren Krulstaarten were awarded on Saturday afternoon 25 March in Amsterdam to the writers of the best film and television scripts of 2022. Once started as a giants' prize due to the lack of a Golden Calf for screenplay, the Zilveren Krulstaarten have now become the Dutch professional awards for screenwriters. The winners are chosen annually by members of the Authors' Association's Screenwriters Network....
What would the world be like if art had had the power that book burners and iconoclasts have attributed to it over the centuries? In the fascinating documentary series 'Our Man with the Taliban', Thomas Erdbrink takes a rather perilous journey through an Afghanistan abandoned by the 'civilised' West. We see a world where book burners and iconoclasts...
By now, everyone with a modicum of fame in the Netherlands has participated in a show where secrecy is essential. This can range from the relatively innocuous concealment of the winner of De Slimste Mens to the extreme secrecy that is the subject of Wie Is De Mol (WIDM) and which ultimately leads to the strangulation contracts attached to talent shows like The...
For RTL-Boulevard reporter Ruud ten Wolde (29), these weeks would be dominated by his book Ill Happy, which comes in at number 1 in the Bestseller 60 this week, in which he writes about his illness and the insights it has brought him. Although he had been ill for six years, he still died suddenly recently. We spoke to him five...
Even though the satirical programme Jiskefet has not existed for more than 15 years, Michiel Romeyn (66) is still recognised on the street as 'lullo' Van Binsbergen, 'the white nigger' Oboema or office clerk Storm. In Romeyn's existence, the dividing line between life and theatre is fluid. 'I like to disrupt things,' he says. 'We're hopefully not going to talk about Jiskefet after all....
In 2014, The Cutter published a review of De Wereld Draait Door. What not many people will know is that prior to that moment, there was a weeks-long battle behind the scenes over this publication. De Wereld Draait Door tried with all its might to stop the episode by not giving permission to quote the footage. Initially,...
Dutch museums, partly due to the recent digital Museum Week, have been able to retain a large part of their audience. There is - reports the Museum Association on its website - a slight turnover though. And the hitherto loyal public will not find their way to museums automatically and to the same extent. But the picture is that the...
Many avid readers will dream of their favourite author sitting at their table one day, talking about her work. Perhaps just as many avid readers will take their dream author on a stroll, want to drink lamb on a café terrace or take them to a darkroom. Or to a classical concert at the Concertgebouw. All can be done. Some will even just...
Everyone balks. Let's put that first. And a lot of people are badly affected. Hospitality, retail, schoolchildren and especially students: everything that is not necessary for survival balks. So does the arts. Not all art, of course, especially larger institutions are coming through the corona crisis reasonably well so far. Quiet and closed, but not bankrupt. We can't take that from...
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...
With these five tips, we are sure to come up with a wonderful programme, in this bizarre summer we are facing, in which we will hopefully be allowed to hit the streets again at all. My fingers are crossed for both.
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