Comedy king in exile

[Watser?]

It seems one of our weirdest comedians has decided to try his luck in Britain. You lucky bastards

"Blissfully, painfully funny." "Electrifying." "Outrageous and surreal." "A force of nature... a genius at work."

The arrival on these shores of an overseas comedy megastar performing his first full-length shows in the UK has prompted rapturous press coverage.

But it is not this month's long-awaited appearance of US comic-turned-movie star Chris Rock that has generated these particular superlatives (although he has earned plenty as well).

This ecstatic praise is from previews of the two-week run at London's Soho Theatre, starting on Friday, by Hans Teeuwen.

Never heard of him? That's exactly how he likes it.

He's been on a hiatus here when his creative crisis coincided with something else...

The start of this hiatus coincided with the 2004 murder of his friend Theo van Gogh, killed by a radical Islamist after the TV showing of the Dutch film-maker's movie featuring abuse of a Muslim woman within a forced marriage.

Teeuwen says that his break was planned, after more than a decade performing stand-up, but admits that the killing "didn't exactly make me enthusiastic to start again".

"Theo being a friend of mine, if I would have been still performing, I am not really sure how I would have dealt with the subject," he says.

"Normally when I did controversial stuff I did it very bluntly - to do it so rude it almost became absurd.

"Obviously it would be very hard to do that or very dangerous to do that, for instance, talking about the Prophet Muhammad."

While avoiding tackling the subject on stage, Teeuwen has regularly done so on TV debates and elsewhere after finding himself thrust into the role of prominent free speech campaigner.

[D. Scarlatti]

The Dutch have a sense of humor?

My friend's parents used to have a plaque on their kitchen wall that said, "A pancake in the stomach is better than two pancakes on the stomach." Evidently they found this to be hilarious! Pancake jokes.

Another Dutch legend concerns the claim that the Dutch had no surnames prior to the Napoleonic era. When French census takers appeared in the Netherlands, they demanded the Dutch adopt surnames. In the instance I'm aware of, the Dutch happened to be standing near an eddy in a stream when the demand was made. Laughing hysterically, they pointed to the eddy, and ended up with the surname, "Whirlpool Man," which had them doubled over in mirth.

I had no idea they had the cafes with the Bob Marley posters in the windows in those days.

[Watser?]

I think we must have exported the humorless bastards

[D. Scarlatti]

I'm kidding of course. When I was in Amsterdam, my buddy and I ended up in this bar drinking copiously with a couple of very comical Dutchmen. At one point, I mentioned that my father had been in Europe for several years during the war, and had spent some of that time in the Netherlands.

After inquiring through a number of questions into the specific times and locations of my father's stationing in Holland, the one guy threw his arms around me and cried, "Brother!"

[Watser?]

[D. Scarlatti]

Originally Posted by Watser?

It took me a moment or two, but so did I.

[Watser?]

Originally Posted by D. Scarlatti

Another Dutch legend concerns the claim that the Dutch had no surnames prior to the Napoleonic era. When French census takers appeared in the Netherlands, they demanded the Dutch adopt surnames. In the instance I'm aware of, the Dutch happened to be standing near an eddy in a stream when the demand was made. Laughing hysterically, they pointed to the eddy, and ended up with the surname, "Whirlpool Man," which had them doubled over in mirth.

This is true. Some people did have last names but many did not.
A lot of people felt resentful or just wanted to have a bit of fun so they gave themselves names like Naaktgeboren (Born naked), Vroegindewei (Early in the meadow) or Poepjes (Poopies). I bet their descendants aren't laughing though...

[D. Scarlatti]

Heh. On a more serious note, when my Dutch friend's father passed away a number of years ago, there appeared a lengthy obituary in the local (Canadian) paper. Evidently the old man had been very active in the Dutch resistance during WWII prior to emigrating; in fact, his dangerous exploits could be truly described as heroic. But his own kids (who were all born in Canada) didn't even know about the exploits until after they read about them in the paper. He never mentioned them.

[Watser?]

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