He has been watching the New Year’s Eve Conference since the 1990s. “That’s where my love for cabaret started,” he says. For Derks, the conference is a success if he makes people laugh. “But I also hope that we can end the year with a little bit of confidence. It was a year full of misery, but I also looked for hope, confidence and strength.”
Preparation
“In January I thought: I’m going to write nicely. But then it turns out that you can’t do much yet. The year has to take its course first. Only towards the end of the year do you get the feeling of such a year and can you make the most important putting events in order.”
During the year, Derks collected articles, links and newspaper clippings. “And every now and then a neighbor would forward a topic.” At the end of the summer he started writing the script for the tryouts. Those tryouts started in September, in small rooms. “First read aloud, then try more and more. This is how it ultimately became a real conference.”
Final adjustments
What is special is that Derks worked from the end to the beginning. “At the beginning I already had the lock ready. You work towards one point, so it has to be sturdy. Only at the last stage did I get the beginning in order.” The final adjustments to the performance even took place last week: “There was a small role for a certain Surinamese former president and he was suddenly in the news again. So that was back on the writing table for a while at Christmas.”
Grand prize
For Derks, the new cabinet was like a ‘grand prize’ for a New Year’s Eve conference. “New names, ministers, and a cabinet that has not yet achieved much, but is releasing symbolic test balloons. I was able to enjoy that.”
All in all, Derks is satisfied with the performance. “I am very happy with the end result and how it looks. Is it worth repeating? Let’s see how it all turns out and what happens next, but so far I thought it was a party!”
Belgium
