The new New Year’s Eve conference has been announced: comedian Pieter Derks will ring out the year on December 31 on behalf of broadcaster BNNVara. This was announced on Tuesday evening in the TV program Sophie & Jeroen. The New Year’s Eve conference is one of the most prestigious jobs in cabaret, with the largest possible stage: New Year’s Eve on NPO 1. The 39-year-old Derks now joins a list of famous predecessors such as Wim Kan, Freek de Jonge, Youp van ‘t Hek and Claudia De Breij.
Derks is the direct successor of Micha Wertheim, who was responsible for the 2023 New Year’s Eve conference. Wertheim had chosen a highly original form, in which two different performances were edited together. The surprising New Year’s Eve conference was received with praise in the press and ultimately attracted more than 1.3 million viewers.
Sharp sneers
Pieter Derks graduated from the Koningstheateracademie in Den Bosch in 2004 and won the audience award at the Amsterdam Kleinkunst Festival in 2005. He made his debut in 2006 with his solo performance That will surprise you. Derks made a total of ten cabaret performances, with which he now visits sold-out theaters. In the years 2012-2014 he achieved national fame as the weekly closing act The world goes on. In those short weekly performances he already proved that he can quickly respond to the latest news with his jokes. Derks also made a New Year’s Eve conference in 2013, but it was not broadcast on television.
About the author
Joris Henquet prescribes de Volkskrant about cabaret, stand-up comedy and musical.
Reviewers have been writing for years that Derks, with his sharp current affairs cabaret, is perfect for hosting the New Year’s Eve conference. About the performance Out of nowhere wrote Gidi Heesakkers in 2022 in a 4-star review: ‘The show is full of super topical jokes, sharp sneers and surprising sidetracks.’
Playground
In a 2019 interview with de Volkskrant Derks also indicated that he would like to make a New Year’s Eve conference on NPO 1: ‘The format is so nice, especially because it has to be about current affairs and news. Some colleagues see that as a straightjacket, but I see it as a playground. You can talk about anything, as long as it happened in the past year.’
It is striking that Derks premiered his new solo performance last weekend Yes Nice. He will tour the country until the end of June. Typically, comedians take all year to prepare for New Year’s Eve. Derks spoke about his annual planning on Tuesday evening Sophie & Jeroen: ‘The question is: when do you start writing? Only in the autumn can you really know what the feeling of such a year is actually like. That’s what I like so much about a New Year’s Eve: that you can capture the spirit of the times and shape it.’
The tryouts for the New Year’s Eve Conference 2024 by Pieter Derks will start this autumn. The show will be recorded at the end of December in the Oude Luxor Theater in Rotterdam.
