It is a horrible autumn for Albert Verlinde. Not only does his talk show RTL Tonight score horribly poorly, his new musical is also being written up. “He’s under a lot of stress.”
Albert Verlinde is already on the ground due to his failed transfer from Today Inside to RTL Tonight, but now there is also a setback in his other area of work. His new musical Brel is a terrible monstrosity, according to reviews from several newspapers. For example, the NRC, which was previously favorable to him, gives only one star.
One star from NRC
Normally Albert Verlinde’s work is positively assessed by NRC — both his biographical musicals about Edith Piaf, Wim Sonneveld and Annie MG Schmidt received many stars from the newspaper — but his latest production, about Jacques Brel, is completely slaughtered. According to the newspaper, it is really a very bad musical.
Reviewer Rahul Gandolahage speaks of ‘a multitude of hasty, anecdotal scenes, as one-dimensional as possible’. Lead actor Sjors van der Panne also falls short, he thinks. “He does not build up, places word accents that are poorly suited to the text, lets the endings of sentences fall short of the breath support (…) and above all: does not articulate.”
Comma singing
And while Brel could even sing a comma, according to Rahul. “Brel could tell more in one sentence than this performance could do in more than two hours. It is to be hoped that our southern neighbors do not discover what we have done to their hero.”
The Volkskrant is also not positive and only gives three out of five stars: “Main actor Sjors van der Panne is not quite up to the enormous job. (…) The acting is not very convincing and although Van der Panne is an experienced singer, his singing voice sounds a bit thin and difficult to understand in the demanding chansons.”
Neat musical
It’s all too much within the lines, the newspaper believes. “It quickly becomes apparent that this is a very neat biomusical. Too neat, in fact, for this unruly, impetuous living artist.”
It too A.D is not enthusiastic. “Brel says in the musical that in fifty years people will not remember him as a film actor. The audience will no longer remember Brel – the musical in five years.”
Stressful
TV critic Victor Vlam sympathizes with Albert. “The fact that this performance about Brel only receives one out of five stars is a real setback and that could mean that it will be much more difficult to attract an audience for that musical,” he says in the podcast Victor Indicates TV.
“It will undoubtedly contribute to the stress he is under. It has seemed to me for a while now that he is really stressed, so I would like to say: good luck Albert, take good care of yourself. That is important at times like this.”