Roelof Hemmen was asked out of pity to act as a sidekick in Renze Klamer’s talk show, where he asked Lil Kleine a bizarrely long question. This is what TV critic Victor Vlam says.
According to media critic Victor Vlam, it is the longest talk show question in the history of Dutch television: the 1 minute and 43 second long story that Roelof Hemmen told Jorik Scholten (Lil Kleine) last week at Renze Klamer’s talk show table. “I think there is a bit of a need for profiling behind that.”
Profiling urge
Why? “Roelof really wants to prove himself as a sidekick. He was of course a newsreader at RTL News in the past. Rick Nieman was the other male presenter at that time and Rick always got all the major broadcasts. He always got every opportunity at RTL,” Victor says in the podcast The Communicados.
He continues: “I can imagine that this bothers Roelof somewhere – he does not feel fully recognized by RTL. And now he is finally a sidekick on a talk show, now he is going to seize his moment. That’s more or less what I think he was thinking there. I think that’s what’s behind it for him. This is just a bit of profiling.”
Long monologues
Co-host Lars Duursma, a communications expert, thinks that Roelof may have been used to this from his column in Eva Jinek’s talk show. “He was always allowed to write those long monologues and explanation blocks there. He thought: I can always speak for two minutes and now I’m going to get it.”
Why was Roelof even a sidekick to Renze? “He’s not really a personality, so in that respect it doesn’t necessarily make sense for him to be a sidekick there in a talk show. The interaction with Eva was certainly not smooth. He can read the news well, but he doesn’t do the interaction that is so important at a talk show table well.”
Pity
The real reason is pity, according to Victor. “The reason he was asked there as a sidekick to Renze is actually because he is the biggest victim of Eva Jinek’s switch. Everyone has been given shelter. Eva Jinek’s editorial staff simply goes to work for Beau, Humberto and Renze.”
Some will go with Eva. “These people will all find work again. But Roelof Hemmen is the only one who ultimately had not found shelter. And I just think that at Renze they thought: yes, how sad for Roelof. Well, let’s ask him to be a sidekick sometime.”
Cold fair
Roelof was a bit of a liability, Victor thinks. “They thought: he may not be the best, but how much damage can he do? How many things can he screw up here? Well, they came home from that rude awakening…”
With that bizarrely long question to Lil Kleine, Roelof has smashed his own windows, he concludes. “It seems to me that this is the end of Roelof Hemmen as a sidekick. It was both the beginning and the end of Roelof as a sidekick.”