Hélène Hendriks sees the tide turning a bit. Criticism of her performance as a talk show host is increasing, and not only because of her unsympathetic boycott of Jack van Gelder. “It’s becoming routine.”
It was a breath of fresh air for a while: Hélène Hendriks and her talk show. It has become boring now. Very boring. This is mainly because she likes to kill all kinds of anecdotes and spicy opinions with a down-to-earth terminator, which does not exactly invite you to make witty comments. “Well, what a story,” they say, for example.
Perfunctory
Hélène is so keen to show that she is incredibly down-to-earth that her talk show starts to feel very indifferent. Above all, she keeps it pleasant: nothing is wrong, what are we worried about. Fine, but boring. And that is also her appearance in the entertainment program The Winner Takes It All, says AD media journalist Gudo Tienhoven.
Gudo says in the AD Media Podcast: “Very perfunctory. I thought it was very perfunctory, yes. It’s all so routine and without a nice ironic sauce à la Chantal Janzen or Martijn Krabbé, but I’m not the biggest Hélène Hendriks fan either. I think it’s fine, I tolerate her.”
Routinely
Colleague Angela de Jong, formerly a big fan of Hélène, agrees. “I don’t know. I’m a bit… I don’t know what I mean… I didn’t think she was bad or anything. You say ‘routine’. Maybe that’s it a bit. I also think that about her talk show these days. I also think that’s missing the sacred fire a bit or something.”
“I think everyone can do whatever they want, you don’t necessarily have to be in one box and you have to do as many things as possible, because I think she really likes this. She really wants to go in that show direction, but nowadays I also have the idea that at De Oranjezomer I’m a bit… Yes, I don’t know, I just miss the sacred fire or something.”
Too sober
Gudo thinks Hélène is flat. “Yes, she may be too down-to-earth for those kinds of shiny-floor shows, that may be it. Chantal is also down-to-earth in her own way, but there is a lot of humor in that. I have the feeling that Hélène’s jokes are all rehearsed or come to her too easily. It’s all a bit too stale and non-committal.”
Angela: “I didn’t think it was worth turning it back on on Saturday.”
Holy fire
The SBS 6 viewer will be presented with Hélène for another week. Then Wilfred Genee’s sucking starts again and Johan Derksen can get angry every evening again. Emotions, such as we no longer see in Hélène.
Or, as Hélène herself nicely downplayed it in her program this week: “It’s because of the holy fire. Hahaha. I miss that.”