Will Georgina Verbaan be disappointed that she didn’t just stay home with all her cats? She has barely been on television for a few days or she is already half strangled by Angela de Jong. “Not funny.”
According to Tina Nijkamp, it is already a flop: the daily eve show Date Tasty on SBS 6, presented by Georgina Verbaan and her best friend Patrick Martens. It’s kind of like First Dates, but with a different sauce. And Angela de Jong doesn’t like that sauce very much, she says in the AD Media podcast.
‘Oh good’
Marcus den Blanken, Angela’s right hand, says that he finds Georgina’s conversations with candidates very bad. “So it started with a woman standing there at a certain point and telling the story that she had survived breast cancer, to which Georgina Verbaan responded: ‘Oh luckily’, or something along those lines.”
He continues: “But just don’t ask anything and then she will tell you another intense thing. Yeah, and she just won’t go through with it, so she’ll leave it. So Georgina Verbaan, a nice actress, just performing that, I don’t think that necessarily…”
Not funny
Georgia is basic, says Angela. “She very neatly had the questions to ask à la: what is the worst date experience ever? And then five minutes later: What’s a turn-off on a date? Or: what do you like? She had memorized it neatly. She just forgot to put any feeling into those questions. And she wasn’t funny either!”
What a bad choice from SBS 6, she continues. “The idea would have been that they would then be very nice, witty, maybe a little villainous or empathetic or compassionate commentary.”
‘What a story’
Another candidate tells at some point that both his parents were shot or something to that effect. Marcus: “Someone tells the most extremely intense thing that can happen and then she says: ‘What a story, isn’t it?’ Yes, as if someone says, “Yeah, it rained on vacation, so I left early.” Then you say: ‘What a story, isn’t it?’”
Angela adds: “I also find it a bit intense to read during your first blind date between the salmon trout and the piece of salmon. I wouldn’t do that so quickly either, but cut it out if you really have presenters who can’t give a normal answer to this or stop the recording, you know.”
Terrible
You couldn’t have broadcast this like this, Angela said. “Then let them think about it for a while and then react to it, but this was so weird. But it is indicative of the program. There’s no atmosphere in it, it doesn’t get fun anywhere. It is a combination of 25 program ideas from people who play a kind of TopChef, First Dates and Lang Leve De Liefde.”
So Georgina is nothing, but what about Patrick? Also not. “I have said here before that I am really surprised every time that Patrick Martens is asked for a format again. That’s what I was wondering here as well unique selling point is that he has to present this per se, which makes him so much fun for it.”
Many colleagues think he is a nice guy. “Yes, which never adds anything.”