Herman Finkers
Encyclopedia
Almelo
Almelo is a municipality and a city in the eastern Netherlands. The main population centres in the town are Aadorp, Almelo, Mariaparochie and Bornerbroek....
, Overijssel
Overijssel
Overijssel is a province of the Netherlands in the central eastern part of the country. The region has a NUTS classification of NL21. The province's name means "Lands across river IJssel". The capital city of Overijssel is Zwolle and the largest city is Enschede...
) is a comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
from the Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
region of Twente
Twente
Twente is a non-administrative region in the eastern Netherlands. It encompasses the most urbanised and easternmost part of the province of Overijssel...
, who is well-known in the Netherlands for his friendly, dry-witted humour and his ambiguous style of storytelling. In his way of telling a story the moral should never be in the way of a good joke or pun. His humor is never at the expense of others, excepting his brother Wilfried Finkers, who is frequently the target of jokes. Wilfried Finkers co-wrote material and occasionally appeared in his brother's shows. Herman Finkers temporarily stopped performing in 2000, and soon afterwards he was diagnosed with a form of leukemia
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia
B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia , also known as chronic lymphoid leukemia , is the most common type of leukemia. Leukemias are cancers of the white blood cells . CLL affects B cell lymphocytes. B cells originate in the bone marrow, develop in the lymph nodes, and normally fight infection by...
. He was given an estimate of 10 to 15 years of life left. On August 5, 2006 a Fuchsia
Fuchsia
Fuchsia is a genus of flowering plants that consists mostly of shrubs or small trees. The first, Fuchsia triphylla, was discovered on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1703 by the French Minim monk and botanist, Charles Plumier...
was named after him. In 2007 he started playing in theatres again, with a new show called "Na de Pauze" (After the Break).
Twents
Finkers has a strong love for the Twents dialectDialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
. He has translated a number of his shows into Twents
Twents
Tweants is a Dutch Low Saxon group of dialects, descending from Old Saxon. It is spoken by approximately 62% of the population of Twente, a region in the Dutch province of Overijssel bordering on Germany. Its speakers also refer to Twents as plat or simply dialect. A widespread misconception is...
Low Saxon
Dutch Low Saxon
Dutch Low Saxon is a group of Low Saxon, i.e. West Low German dialects spoken in the northeastern Netherlands. In comparison, the remainder of the Netherlands speak a collection of Low Franconian dialects.The class "Dutch Low Saxon" is not unanimous...
, which is his mother tongue. He also wrote and directed two short animation films, which were completely in Twents: Kroamschudd'n in Mariaparochie
Mariaparochie
Mariaparochie is a town in the Dutch province of Overijssel. It is a part of the municipality of Tubbergen, and lies about 4 km northeast of Almelo.In 2001, the town of Mariaparochie had 281 inhabitants...
(which tells the story of the birth of Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
in a Twents setting) and his comic interpretation of William Shakespeare's
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
MacBeth, the former of which is shown annually around christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
on regional television. After his retirement from theatre, Finkers played a role in the first Soap series
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
in Twents: "Van Jonge Leu en Oale Groond" (Of Young People and Old Ground).
For his efforts to promote the Twents dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
he received the Johanna van Buuren prize.
Theater performances
- Op Zwart Zangzaad ("On Black Birdseed") (1979)
- De terugkeer van Joop Huizinga ("Joop Huizinga's Return") 1982
- De Diana Ros Show ("The Diana Ros Show") 1983
- EHBO is mijn lust en mijn leven ("First aid is the love of my life") 1985
- Het Meisje van de Slijterij ("The liquor store girl") 1987
- De zon gaat zinloos onder, morgen moet zij toch weer op ("The sun sets pointlessly, she's got to rise again tomorrow anyway") (1990)
- Dat heeft zo'n jongen toch niet nodig ("A guy like him doesn't need that") (1992)
- Geen spatader veranderd ("Not changed one bit") (1995) (also in Twentsch: "Gen spatoader aans")
- Kalm aan en rap een beetje ("Take it easy, on the double") (1998) (also in Twentsch: "Heanig an en rap wat")
- Na de pauze ("After the break") (2007)
Note that some of the titles are very hard to translate puns.
Discography
- Van zijn LP ("From his album")
- EHBO is mijn lust en mijn leven ("First aid is the love of my life")
- De zon gaat zinloos onder, morgen moet zij toch weer op (The sun sets pointlessly, she's got to get up tomorrow any way.)
- Carnaval der Dieren / Sint Joris Mis (Animal Carnival/ Saint George Mass)
- Kroamschudd'n in MariaparochieMariaparochieMariaparochie is a town in the Dutch province of Overijssel. It is a part of the municipality of Tubbergen, and lies about 4 km northeast of Almelo.In 2001, the town of Mariaparochie had 281 inhabitants...
/ MacBeth (animation films) ("Baby shower" in Mary's Parish / MacBeth) - Dat heeft zo'n jongen toch niet nodig (A boy like that doesn't need that.)
- Geen spatader veranderd (Not changed one bit (pun untranslatable))
- Kalm aan en rap een beetje. (Take it easy, on the double.)
- Een engelhart in Rome (an angelheart in Rome) (A thoughtful Finkers on audience in the VaticanHoly SeeThe Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
)
Most of his theater shows were released on VHS and DVD, and several years ago a box set of all these DVDs was made available.