It is 2023 AD, the earth has already experienced some serious misery, but still no one knows where the lower limit of a low point is. When I thought humanity couldn’t fall any lower, came Play Café on TV, a televised gossip magazine for pensioners with a country house on a Spanish costa and civil servants killing their time on the showbiz pages of HLN.be.
This is the story of Flanders, where media houses produce an infinite amount of sludge and rapidly descend to the level of juice channels. Play Café claims to offer “a light-hearted but sharp look” at what’s happening in showbiz land. In the first week there was an item about an Olympic champion in tax evasion, an interview with a hairdresser about her eyelid correction, an in-depth analysis of actors’ muscles – including a gripping testimonial from Kürt Rogiers – and an introduction to a ‘sexy teacher’ with a TikTok account. Spend a week in a cesspool and the experience will be more inspiring.
In the first episode, presenters Tatyana Beloy and Celine Van Ouytsel pointed out the dangers of gossip channels, which is ironic for a program that equally plows through society’s sewer system in search of ‘news’. After the success of magazines like Hey everyone spread to the internet, Play4 is bringing the phenomenon to television. Of all the bad evolutions in life, this one is worse than the emergence of influencers.
How bad can a program be? Beloy and Van Ouytsel, together with Viktor Verhulst and Matthias Vandenbulcke, were the wooden rakes who read the ‘news’ from an autocue with the flair of a wet mop and asked banal questions on top of that. “Viktor, have you ever sent a dickpick?” “Viktor, how much did your dad pay for his eyelid surgery?” My personal favorite, however, was Verhulst who asked lawyer Omar Souidi if he could explain what the mafia is. The average Ketnet program has more depth than Play Café.
Half of the items contain ‘exclusive’ information, Vandenbulcke is happy to emphasize. Play Café had the scoop that Jani Kazaltzis has had a lover for two years. Megan Desaever, the one and only, only reacted to them on the news that she does not pay taxes. Newspapers and websites are only too happy to copy that ‘news’. Showbiz shizzle that leads to clicks and the associated ad revenue is the only thing Play Café is out.
Somehow I am also positive about the arrival of Play Café. I estimate the chance at 1 percent that even worse television will be made in Flanders in 2023. At least now I know where the lower limit of a low point is.
Play CaféMonday to Thursday at 7:40 p.m. on Play4.
