Not that full mail bags were delivered to the door of his home in Westenschouwen in Zeeland every week, but Harry Dikmans did receive letters from young fans with some regularity. The envelope did not contain his real name, but that of the character for which he became famous: B2, the hearing-impaired villain from Bassie & Adriaan, with his famous statements such as: ‘What do you say?’ and ‘What does the boss say?’
B2’s hearing loss regularly led to comical misunderstandings with crook B1 and the boss. It was only a supporting role, and for a short time, but it still made Dikmans extremely popular. ‘Especially because several generations have… Bassie & Adriaan grew up,” says his son Harry. ‘I always say: he became most famous for what he did for the shortest time.’
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Dikmans was actually a quick draftsman by profession. Large companies hired him to secretly make caricature drawings of visitors at fairs – he hid in a cupboard with two peepholes. A great success: he traveled all over the world with it.
Calling customers in
Dikmans was born in Rotterdam in 1927. Together with his brother Joop, he went to the city at a young age to perform acts. After the war he applied for a job at the circus, where he started as a boniser, although he had no idea what that meant. He then pretended to colleagues that he had to solve a riddle. ‘Do you know another word for boniseur?’ “Oh man, you mean that guy who has to lure customers in?” Son Harry: ‘That bluff caused him to go from one thing to another.’
This was also the case with the role of B2. Dikmans and the Van Toor brothers, interpreters of Bassie and Adriaan, knew each other from Vlaardingen. When they were looking for an actor for B2 for the pilot, recorded in a Vlaardingen bakery, they quickly found him.
He was given the freedom to fill the role himself. Inspired by his role models Toon Hermans and Charlie Chaplin, he decided that B2 should wear a hat and a mustache and that he would be hard of hearing. In 2017, Bas van Toor (Bassie) said on Radio 1: ‘If I have to be honest, of all the criminals, Harry Dikmans was the best.’
Still, after two series, The secret of the key (1978) and The Diamond (1979), on for him at Bassie & Adriaan. He was able to work as a quick draftsman for a large company at a trade fair in Argentina – which was more lucrative than stepping into the shoes of B2 again. He himself nominated a successor: his brother Joop, who then played in The secret of the treasure (1987), The missing crown (1988) and The sunken city (1989).
Mainly entertainer
Dikmans has never identified with B2. If there was a life’s work, it was drawing. He patiently took the time for children who came to the door for an autograph, but that was all he needed. His daughter-in-law, who was studying to be a journalist, also noticed this and knocked on his door for an interview. “Ask Joop differently,” he said. ‘He likes that much better.’
Dikmans mainly wanted to be an entertainer, something he was until his last breath. After his retirement, he lived largely in Spain, where he always went out into the streets in his artist’s costume, complete with bow and hat. When it was someone’s birthday, he couldn’t resist playing a barrel organ happy Birthday to play until the entire terrace joined in.
A fall forced him to return to Zeeland last year. He died there after a short illness on April 5 in the De Wieken nursing home in Zierikzee, aged 96.
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