How terribly sad that Albert Verlinde (64) still has to experience this at the end of his TV career: everywhere he goes he is asked about his huge TV flop. And that makes him grumpy…
Albert Verlinde appeared last night, as a surprise, as a table guest in the extra festive broadcast of Today Inside. He has exchanged the program, which won the Golden Televizier Ring late last night, for the completely failed RTL Tonight. That is painful in itself, but now he is asked about it everywhere.
Teasing
When he enters the studio, Wilfred Genee immediately shouts: “This is an embarrassing job application, ladies and gentlemen! We have selected the Tonight line-up especially for you, so you sit opposite the table.”
Johan Derksen immediately starts with his teasing: “That’s new for you, isn’t it? That you’re in a program that people are watching?”
Albert: “Yes, it’s incredible! It’s a bit of a shock! Hahahaha.”
‘Come back!’
Johan immediately invites Albert to leave RTL again. “What do you care about that money, man! Come back!”
Wilfred: “How are you? I can imagine that you are having a hard time. That it is not easy.”
Albert: “No, I had a hard time the first three or four weeks, so you think: what have I gotten myself into? Not so much about the program. You come from here, a lot of people watch it and suddenly you sit in a kind of Bermuda three-box of television, and you think: no one sees me now. I had to get used to that.”
Desperate
Johan confronts Albert to his face with his failed transfer. “I see you desperately pulling at that, but the funny thing is – and I don’t understand that: interpreters who came out very well here, you were also one of them, they come out much less well there. That has to do with the overall atmosphere.”
Albert: “It also has to do with the fact that it is a kind of hybrid between a talk show and the atmosphere you want here. You often see that someone really wants to do an interview and then you would rather not have the others there. There is a mix.”
“You want to go back!”
Wilfred has the idea that Albert would love to return to VI, but finds it styleless to express this. Albert: “No, not at all! Really not, because I’m in a really good place, and yet: I also think that the channel gives the opportunity to try and continue. Another channel might have said: never mind, but they will continue with it, great.”
Would Albert want to go back or not? “I have a contract with RTL. I think: what you start, you should just stick to it and continue.”
Eighteen months
How long does that contract last? Albert: “Another year and a half.”
Wilfred: “But that will never last that long, will it?”
And then Albert becomes irritable: “I don’t know! They’re still busy.”
Johan: “If a new editor-in-chief comes in and things don’t work out yet, they will pull the plug. They may have to pay you, but then you could be here again.”
Bar guest Chris Woerts: “No, Albert will be back on January 11. After the winter break, the plug has been unplugged for a long time.”
Angry at Tina
At one point, fellow bar guest Tina Nijkamp talks about Ben van der Burg, who also switched from VI to RTL. “Then he sits there talking and then I think: he has no idea what he has gotten himself into. He just keeps talking and talking and Renze is quite unhappy about this. No, I don’t think it’s a match.”
And then Albert gets pissed off again: “No, but you fill in a lot. Last week you wrote (put on a crazy voice, ed.): ‘Albert isn’t here all week, strange!’ Then I think: strange? I have a try-out from Brel.”
Wilfred: “I thought it was strange too, to be honest.”
Not feeling well
Albert said he was just busy with other things. Johan: “What I do think is that Renze is not feeling well either. It seems as if he is sitting there with a bit of reluctance.”
Albert then says again: “No, he is not there reluctantly, but of course he also has something like: when will it start? That’s what you feel about him, of course, but he goes for it.”
Johan: “Make it the Renze show. He is the best of the presenters. Let that boy fill it in a bit, because he always manages to create a reasonably nice atmosphere at the table.”
Own fault
Albert is also in later that evening RTL Tonightin which reporter Jaïr Ferwerda visits the studio of competitor VI live. Then the entire RTL studio is painfully confronted with Johan’s expectation that they will soon no longer be on the air. “Of course it’s your own fault, isn’t it?” he says about the switched signers.
“Albert was already completely filled and he can still be borrowed for a lot of money. Here he came into his own and he is there for Jan Lul, I think it’s a bit of a shame.”
Bridge has been built
The RTL Tonight viewer sees one at that moment split screen with an uncomfortable Albert on the left and the teasing VI trio on the right. Wilfred: “He was just there, wasn’t he? The bridge has already been built and where a door closes, a door opens. Quite possibly. Not entirely certain, of course.”
Johan: “He is very welcome if he ever wants to come back.”
Jaïr still tries: “When you’re on TV, you just have to keep going even if you have a setback, right?”
‘That’s a credit to you’
Ultimately, Albert also provides text and explanations in the RTL studio. “I always think: whatever concerns you, you have to make sure that you get it right together. We are all working hard on it and the channel also gives us the opportunity to keep searching and keep building. Then I would be a coward if I said: ‘Guys, I’m taking the first bus to Talpa.’ We don’t do that.”
Renze: “That’s to your credit.”