DELICIOUS CONTENTS MAY HAVE SETTLED IN TRANSIT!
Having already enjoyed one of Boys Won’t Be Boys’ (BWBB) Queer Friday’s at the CC Amstel Theater, I was looking forward to this collaboration with music cooperative, LUDWIG, timed nicely to kick off Pride 2025 at the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t Ij. I wasn’t disappointed, even if the show does not really do what it says on the tin.
BWBB’s shows are a revue-style selection of music, narrative and, in this case, dance. Vincenzo Turiano provided a wonderful opening to the show. Their solo dance to Tchaikovsky’s Pezze Elegiaco, as we discover later, documents their own personal coming out as non-binary. The balletic and yet contemporary choreography sees them transform from man to woman. Not unique in the performing arts but I’ve never seen it so convincingly done as here; with the subtlety and detail that I often sadly miss in drag. Drag this is certainly not and Vincenzo are nothing short of mesmerising in all their pieces in this show.
As mentioned above, this ‘celebration’ veers somewhat off it’s promised theme in that not all the music is actually classical. Additionally one passionate, narrative piece is really more about colonialism and racism and I missed how this was connected with queerness. But this is a small niggle about a show which was largely satisfying. Plus, unlike most theatre experiences and unexpectedly in a large auditorium, it’s strangely comforting! This is almost entirely owing to our MC for the evening, Rikkert van Huisstede.
Rikkert’s first entrance is through the auditorium and his gorgeous Counter Tenor voice (singing Poor Wayfaring Stranger – writer unknown) is at once ethereal and calming. Once he addresses the audience this calming effect is carried through and he has a unique talent, displayed only by the best radio presenters, of making each audience member feel that he is talking just to them and no-one else. Not only that but his monologue, which almost verges on stand-up, is philosophical, wonderfully observant and very, very funny. He starts with his penchant for supermarket shopping in a frock; but we are soon being reminded of the perils of the school corridor and the schoolboy insult to top all insults ‘homo!’ But even if its truth gave the gay audience contingent reason to shudder with painful nostalgia, his delivery calms us with humour. I genuinely snuggled into my hardish seat to enjoy the rest of the show. It was only a pity that Rikkert didn’t link all the contributions as this opening and his other songs leave us wanting more. Who remembered, for example, that one of his numbers, Sorry dat ik besta, comes from Ja Zuster, Nee Zuster – a popular 1970’s TV series being quietly subversive and trail-blazing tolerance in the best possible way.
Accompanying this musically, with tremendous skill and panache are classically trained musicians Bas Treub, Marc Alberto and (as we discover later) a heart-melting gay couple Seán Morgan-Rooney (piano) and Kalle de Bie (cello). Morgan-Rooney’s Irish Sonata, written for his lover provides a much needed romantic element to the evening’s proceedings.
There will be further dates around The Netherlands. Put your feet up for 80 minutes of sheer pleasure. Nicholas Stanley 24th July 2025
