Youp van 't Hek

Joseph Jacobus Maria van 't Hek, commonly known as Youp van 't Hek, (born February 28, 1954 in Naarden) is a Dutch comedian and a columnist for NRC Handelsblad. Youp van 't Hek is the brother of field hockey international Tom van 't Hek.

Biography

Youp was born and raised in 't Gooi, one of the richer parts of the Netherlands. His youth there served as an inspiration for his ironic attitude toward the rich, the successful and all those who are pretending to be so. After being kicked out of several high schools, he finally finished the one where he was also leading the school theater, and moved to Amsterdam. There he was one of the founding members of Cabaret NAR (Cabaret Jester). Through all the changes in Cabaret NAR, Youp ended up being the only constant factor in it and because of him focusing more and more on their shows, he graduately became Cabaret NAR. In these days he (or Cabaret NAR) was not very successful, often not even successful enough to pay for their own shows. During all this he worked in some of those boring, mind-numbing, riskless, black-and-white, have-to-wear-a-suit, 9-to-5 kind of office jobs, to which he owes a tremendous amount of inspiration for his jokes and imitations that can be found in almost all of his shows.

In the early 1980s Cabaret NAR slowly disappeared and Youp moved on as a solo artist. From then on he has received great popularity. Though his shows and statements may be considered controversial, he has developed himself, not only as a comedian, but also as an idealist. His humor is always mixed with a sense of irony towards modern life, culture, and national and international politics. Other themes often found in his shows and humor are death, hypocrisy, the innocence of children, the sincerity of the elder ones, the gap between what society expects from you and what you, deep in your heart, want the most, and the question: "When would you call someone crazy and when would you call him/her normal or healthy?".

His big break came in 1983 on KRO's "De alles is anders-show". His energetic performance made him a household name overnight.

Youp's shows and jokes have often had a great effect on society. The most famous one was when he lambasted Buckler, a low-alcohol beer brewed by Heineken in his 1989 end-of-year show. Heineken credited this ridicule with a marked decline in the popularity of the product, to the point that they withdrew it from the Dutch market. Youp has often cited this as the best joke in his career and has subsequently referred to it in all his old-year shows.

Shows

With Cabaret NAR
* Your Youp for you (1973)
* Meer geluk dan wijsheid (More luck than wisdom) (1973)
* Gele ellebogen (Yellow elbows) (1974)
* Blaffende honden (Barking dogs) (1975)
* Alles in Wonderland (Everything in Wonderland, a wordplay on Alice in Wonderland because alles sounds similar to alice.) (1976)
* Romantiek met mayonnaise (Romance with mayonnaise) (1977)
* Geen vakantie voor Youp en Jan (No holiday for Youp and Jan) (1978)
* Zat ik maar thuis met een goed boek (Wish I would have been at home with a good book) (1979)
* Zonder twijfel (Without doubt) (1981)Solo
* Man vermist (Man missing) (1982)
* Gebroken glas (Broken glass) (1983)
* Verlopen en verlaten (literally: Faded and abandoned, or more freely: Down and out) (1984)
* Tunnel zonder vluchtstrook (Tunnel without hard shoulder) (1986)
* Hond op het ijs (Dog on ice, as in "dancing on ice", not as in "champagne on ice") (1987)
* Oudejaarsconference 1989 (Old-Year's-Show, a show on New Year's eve looking back on the most important/funny events of the past year) (1989)
* Alles of nooit (All or never) (1991)
* Ergens in de verte (Somewhere in the distance) (1992)
* Spelen met je leven (Playing with your life) (1994)
* Oudejaarsconference 1995 (Old-Year's-Show) (1995)
* Scherven (Shards) (1996)
* De waker, de slaper & de dromer (The guard, the sleeper & the dreamer) (1998)
* Mond vol tanden, oudejaarsconference 1999 (literally: "Mouth full of teeth", meaning: "speechless", Old-Year's-Show) (1999)
* De wereld draait door (meaning both "Life goes on" and "The world is going crazy") (2000)
* Youp speelt Youp, oudejaarsconference 2002 (Youp playing Youp, Old-Year's-Show) (2002)
* Prachtige paprika's (Wonderful paprikas) (2003)
* Het zelfmoordcommando (The suicide command) (2005)
* De schreeuwstorm (The shoutstorm, a wordplay on the Dutch "sneeuwstorm", meaning "snowstorm", and "schreeuwen", meaning "shouting") (2006)

Music

Youp van 't Hek has worked with a changing group of musicians to supply the music to the songs in his shows. The constant factor in his musical backup during almost his entire career has been Ton Scherpenzeel (keyboardist of Kayak), who has composed almost all of his songs. In most of his shows he also worked with multi-instrumentalist Rens van der Zalm. The music to Youp's songs is mostly played on piano, accordion, violin and acoustic guitar, which reflects Youp's preference for classical music.

Columns and Books

Youp has written columns on sports and later on general topics for NRC Handelsblad since 1988. These have later been printed into books by Thomas Rap publishing. This company, founded by a friend of Youp, has printed the texts of his shows into books from the very first, very unsuccessful days, when publishing them seemed a waste of money. Because of this, Youp never switched publishers; a kind of loyalty that is typical for Youp and his career. A list of the titles of his books that do not contain the texts of his shows:

Sports columns:
* Niks spel, knikkers ("Not the game, the marbles", it's the opposite of the saying: "It's not about the marbles, it's about the game", meaning that playing is more important then winning) (1989)
* Het hemd van de leeuw ("The undershirt of the lion", reference to a Dutch footbal song for their national team) (1990)
* Sportgek (Mad about sports) (1990)
* Floppie, Yourie en andere helden (Floppie, Yourie and other heroes) (1992)
* Eerst de man, dan de bal (First the player, then the ball) (1993)
* De selectie ("The selection"/"The squad", a compilation of his best sports columns) (1997)General columns:
* Amah hoela (wordplay on Amah, a domestic servant, and a Dutch expression "Amehoela" or "Aan m'n hoela", meaning "no way" or "my ass") (1994)
* Ik schreeuwlelijk (I bigmouth, with bigmouth used as a verb) (1995)
* En het bleef nog lang onrustig in mijn hoofd (And my mind remained restless for a long time) (1996)
* Majesteit, (Majesty, ) (1997)
* Fax (Fax) (1998)
* Zaterdag (Saturday) (1999)
* Het zal me jeuken (literally: "it could itch me", meaning "I couldn't care less") (2000)
* Iedereen is in de war (Everybody is confused/crazy) (2001)
* 166x Youp (a compilation of his best columns) (2001)
* Het platte land (literally: "The flat land", referring to the Netherlands, when written as "platteland" it means: "countryside") (2002)
* Liegangst (Fear of lying, wordplay on Fear of flying) (2003)
* Hartjeuk en zieleczeem (Hartitch and souleczema) (2004)
* Het leven is wél leuk (Life IS fun, with the emphasis of denying that "Life sucks") (2005)
* Oelikoeli en andere goden ("Oelikoeli and other gods", Oelikoeli is a god that Youp made up. Youp is its only believer, because he says that as soon as a god has more than one believer, the believers start fighting each other) (2006)
* Youp is leuk? ("Youp is fun?", a compilation of his best columns) (2007)
* Iedereen is eigenaar van iets (Everybody is the owner of something) (2007)Other books:
* Rijke meiden ("Rich girls", short stories) (1991)
* Liedjes van A tot Z ("Songs from A to Z", an alphabetically ordered collection of lyrics) (2003)
* Komen & gaan, een week scharrelen rond Gare du Nord ("Coming and going, a week of wandering around Gare du Nord", poetry) (2004)
* De wonderlijke broertjes Pim en Pietje ("The amazing brothers Pim and Pietje", children's book) (2004)

External links

* [http://www.youp.nl Youp's official website]
* [http://weblogs.nrc.nl/weblog/youp His recent columns in NRC Handelsblad]