During the Cabaret Gala in Theater Diligentia in The Hague, the VSCD Cabaret Prizes for the 2024-2025 theater season were awarded in three categories. The Poelifinario for the most impressive cabaret program in the entertainment category went to Just as if by Jochem Myjer. In the engagement category the prize was for White Noise by Soundos El Ahmadi. In the cabaret category 2025-1 from Jan Beuving.
The winner of the Neerlands Hoop 2025, for the greatest talent, is Teun van den Elzen, for his performance On Position.
About Just as if van Jochem Myjer, the seven-member VSCD Cabaret jury (five theater programmers, a reviewer and a director) wrote that “this family man” skillfully knows how to keep his audience “attracted with a sophisticated mix of physical and substantive humor”, about “relationship vicissitudes, boys among themselves, family situations and student antics”. With “relative lightness” he reflects on “the main and secondary issues in life.”
In NRC the performance was called a “beautiful celebration of human behavior”: “The anecdotes are of little substance, but the way Myjer tells it makes it fun.” For his previous program, Breathe in, breathe out Myjer also won the Poelifinario in the entertainment category in 2018.
Jan Beuving.
Photo Jaap Reedijk
Also read
Comedian Jochem Myjer: ‘With me you are on a roller coaster: joke, joke, joke’
About White Noise of Soundos El Ahmadi, the jury writes that she guarantees “powerful, combative performances, in which she opposes dishonesty and mentions uncomfortable truths without fuss or fuss.” The jury calls her an “impressive comedian”: “Women do not become liberated in this man’s world, this fighter knows, and her resentment is well channeled in this strong program.”
NRC mentioned White Noise an “entertaining” performance, and praised how adeptly Soundos manages to serve up her annoyances “with the right amounts of crassness and comic exaggeration.”
Jan Beuving made the New Year’s Eve performance 2025-1 together with pianist and arranger Tom Dicke. According to the jury, the program is “full of beautiful texts, references to (hyper) current events and statements that you would most like to contribute.” His “beautiful songs” form “a series of highlights”: “Beuving has been operating at a high level for years, but has outdone itself again in this captivating mix of cabaret and commitment.”
Soundos El Ahmadi.
Photo Anne van Zantwijk
Also read
Soundos El Ahmadi: ‘I am full of anger and resentment. But that’s good for my comedy
Also NRC was lyrical and called his “sizzling New Year’s Eve”, “one of the best cabaret performances of the year 2024” and “a program that is very tightly composed and abundantly filled with strong jokes and striking thoughts”.
Teun van den Elzen (1993) received the Neerlands Hoop (“for the most promising theater maker”) for On Positionhis second cabaret program. According to the jury, the political science graduate “gives his own new impulse to politically charged cabaret” and directs “the audience’s laughter with an enviable sense of timing and intonation.”
Teun van den Elzen.
Photo Poelifinario
There is no monetary award attached to the VSCD Cabaret Prizes. The Dutch photographer Corb!no (Maarten Corbijn) makes portraits of the winners. These will hang in the foyer of Diligentia.
In 2024, the Poelifinarios went to Lisa Ostermann (engagement), Rundfunk (entertainment) and Peter van Rooijen (cabaret art).
Also read
An interview with Teun van den Elzen: ‘Contact between ministries is a bit like asking for dating in group six’
NEW: Give this item as a gift
As an NRC subscriber you can subscribe every month 10 articles give as a gift to someone without an NRC subscription. The recipient can read the article directly, without a paywall.