Youp van ‘t Hek is completely done with it: talk shows on television. An episode of Beau van Erven Dorens’ talk show was the last straw for him. “It no longer matters who is where.”
Almost all regular talk shows are struggling with considerably reduced viewing figures, but it is in particular Beau van Erven Dorens and Eva Jinek who are punished by the viewer. The guest list is anything but impressive and all conversations seem very interchangeable. Comedian Youp van ‘t Hek is now completely blown away.
tame sheep
Youp wonders whether viewers would realize if talk shows invited celebrities for a week to talk about random topics. Angela de Jong about motorcycle gangs and René van der Gijp about Iranian poetry, for example. “Just a solid speech followed by a round of applause from the ever-present tame sheep.”
The comedian dares to take it for granted that most viewers will not question it. “I fear that the average viewer does not realize the experiment. He’s going through it nicely,” he writes in VARAguide†
Done with television
What does Youp want to prove with this? “That it’s done with the television. And certainly with the talk shows. It no longer matters who is where and what it is about. As long as words flow out of the guest.”
Youp has had enough. “When did I come up with this simple idea? When I saw Caroline van der Plas at Beau to talk about the Eurosong Contest. No one was surprised. The politician happily chatted through the subject,” he says cynically.
And Beau? “In the meantime, he was thinking about his resignation.”