She was last in the big musical 14 years ago Dirty Dancing. Now Babette van Veen (55) returns to the stage in the promising war spectacle 40-45, the musical. An exciting, but especially important step, says the actress. “We are one of the first generations to grow up without war in the Netherlands. We all take that for granted.”
The musical, which comes from the pen of Studio 100 boss Gert Verhulst, will not premiere in Barneveld until September next year, but Plenty of spectacle is already promised. And that will certainly happen, says Van Veen in conversation with this newspaper. Admittedly, she couldn’t really imagine it before. Only when she saw the registration was she convinced. This mainly had to do with the fact that the musical, as Van Veen himself calls it, is very ‘cinematic’. “It really looks like a beautiful British film about the war.”
The musical tells the story of a Rotterdam family that owns a cinema. The two sons are inseparable, but then World War II breaks out and they are torn apart. Van Veen plays the role of the mother of the family, who does everything she can to keep her nest together in a world that is already being torn apart.
This time no singing role for Van Veen. The actress calls it an exciting challenge, but also wants to emphasize how important it is that stories about the war continue to be told. In that respect, the apple does not fall far from the tree: her father Herman van Veen also conveyed that message several times. That is why she sees it as a kind of tribute to the man who brought her into the world and her grandparents who experienced the war.
“We are one of the first generations to grow up without war in the Netherlands. We don’t think about that enough. We always take for granted that things are going well,” says Van Veen. “Things are going wrong all around us and that could happen to us too. So we can be grateful that things are going this way here. Moreover, we should not forget the suffering of people from that time.”
Combine with Good Times, Bad Times
Van Veen will perform in the piece four times a week. How she will combine that with her role as Linda Dekker in Good times Bad Times, remains to be seen. GTST colleague Bertrie Wieringa left the soap for a while for the musical The trip, but Van Veen does not intend to follow that example. “I still have to talk to them about that. Performing the musical four times a week, well, that’s quite a lot. But in principle I would like to continue running GTST.”
In any case, Van Veen does not have a shortage of time. Both sons have left home, allowing the actress to spend her day as she wishes. ,,That makes a difference. Everything I would like to do fits into my agenda at the moment.”
Also listen to the AD Media Podcast below. You can find all our podcasts at ad.nl/podcasts.
Watch our Show & Entertainment videos below:
Free unlimited access to Showbytes? Which can!
Log in or create an account and never miss anything from the stars.