The Evening Show with Arjen Lubach. Image VPRO
After more than two months of absence, The Evening Show with Arjen Lubach was back and the host was clearly looking forward to it: “We’re back!” he cheered to his equally enthusiastic audience. It is a pity that De Avondshow was not broadcast during the election month and during the start of the formation, but the NPO simply does not tolerate a second satirical program besides Even tot hier. As if there isn’t enough material for satire in a country where there is a threat of political stalemate surrounding the formation.
Lubach obviously couldn’t pass up that topic, but first, as a seasonal tidy-up, he went over what else had changed in recent months: no more cellphones in the classroom, children are allowed to have a double surname, and vaping with sweet flavors is prohibited. The editors had once again managed to find witty fragments on these tired topics, such as the vape saleswoman who was moved to tears and talked about ‘the end of an era’.
The fact that the approval of the dispersal law by the VVD senators had placed a bomb under the formation was pointed out by first showing Wilders talking about ‘a problem’, then about ‘a big problem’ and then showing Yesilgöz asking quasi-naively ‘which problem?’ Simple but witty.
Former State Secretary Gunay Uslu was also criticized for leaving the cabinet prematurely to help her brother at Corendon. Old news indeed, but it was refreshed with a hilarious fragment in which Uslu was interviewed at the Corendon stand at the holiday fair: “Can you briefly explain what you did for this?”
And because of Monday evening, the always very dry Diederik Smit was also present again with the Sports Studio section, a remnant of the unfortunately defunct satirical sports program Easy Score. In the item about Ajax’s purchase of Jordan Henderson, in addition to the now well-established concept of ‘desert regret’, the term ‘scrabble back’ was also coined.
The serious item about the window cleaning mafia may have relied too much on the findings from the Volkskrant, but other than that there were actually no weak spots in this first Evening Show. The editors had had weeks to prepare that first episode and the question is whether they can maintain this level four evenings a week. But the reunion was certainly not disappointing.
More TV reviews? Read all episodes of Han Lips in our archive. Also read the weekly Sterrenstof section, in which we discuss the media week. Comment? hanlips@parool.nl.
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Het Parool will from now on sign the TV reviews in the Han Lips watches TV section with the author’s name. The section will of course continue to exist, but the fictional character Han Lips has retired.
2024-01-23 06:35:32
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