Webstrings: Remy van Kesteren on life & harp
Couch potato
After some busy time with harp, a rehearsal of Ibert’s Capriccio for ten instruments yesterday, and a concert with soprano scheduled tonight, I exercised a full night being a couch potato.
Dutch television is unfortunately not the best there is. Apart from some interesting talk shows, it lacks quality BBC series such as Ideal. But in desperate attempts to avoid just another talent show, show news and similar trash TV, I came across a brilliant new pilot: Heerlijk Eerlijk Heertje, on one of our public channels. I must say it made my night (until then uselessly filled with almost everything I did not need to know) well spent!
Just before the show started, I saw the presenter Raoul Heertje being unable to explain his own program in a promo, which immediately grabbed my attention. Main setting of the program is a talk show, but in many ways that’s not at all what it is about. Heertje, who is a comical sidekick of the dutch version of BBC’s ‘Have I Got News For You‘, is someone I always admire for his fresh and hilarious perceptions. The HEH-show is based on his observation that we are all playing theatre in life towards each other, especially on television. That’s why the direction shows you everything; during the program they switch from the talk show to all the preparation before, and the editing after the show has been recorded. You hear the editors discuss about the people interviewed (‘This is not the right person to start with, he is not a good narrator’), you see Heertje going to a psychologist in order to learn how to undermine the theatre of one of his guests (psychologist: ‘At least mention my company since I’m not getting paid’), and you witness a spontaneous idea to invite a total stranger to the talk show. The uncut version is available on internet, and all this is to try to achieve an honest show, without any scripts, in order to avoid feigned interest and dishonest interviewing.
Result is a very refreshing show, keeping me awake to contemplate all sorts of questions concerning ethics and the theatre we all play in daily life. If you have the oppertunity, I strongly advice you to watch next weeks episode, on Friday around 10.00 on channel 3.