PHOTO: IMKE PANHUIJZEN
Jos Maalderink of Plakshot:
‘You can’t
change the world with satire’
This autumn and winter, Jos Maalderink (1986) and his brother Roel will appear in the theatre show Verbroedering. Until recently, they were involved in the satirical VPRO programme Plakshot. Jos works as an editor for the satirical website De Speld and as quiz editor for programmes such as ‘Ik weet er alles van!’. Maalderink completed a Bachelor’s degree in history at the UG in 2008, for which he spent six months studying in Mexico City. He later took a Master’s programme in Latin-American studies at the University of Amsterdam. After two years working at the Tax and Customs Administration through an employment agency, he followed the post-graduate Newspaper Journalism programme at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
At the time, something drew him to Groningen, says Jos Maalderink. It was partly the fact that he had to go somewhere to study history, but it was also a fondness for the region. ‘My granddad, my mother’s father, was a true “Grunneger”,’ he explains in the bar of a movie-theatre in Utrecht. ‘He came from Sappemeer. A couple of years ago, I started exploring our genealogy and discovered that a murder had been committed in my family in 1873.’ Maalderink wrote about it for the newspaper Dagblad van het Noorden.
But Groningen roots or not, his years in the North were not the best years of his life. ‘I hardly ever left my room in Selwerd,
I spent most of my time reading. It wasn’t necessarily a bad period, but I wasn’t at my social prime back then.’
Went viral
In those days, Jos was very much like the version of himself that he, until recently, played in the satirical TV programme Plakshot, which the VPRO has brought to an end after seven seasons. The programme mainly comprised sketches and street interviews. Many of the interviews went viral on social media, for example one featuring the question ‘What do you think about refugees?’ and another about ‘journalistic objectivity’.
Jos’ column
In addition, there was ‘Jos’ column’ in which Maalderink discussed a new social issue every week — from global warming to the emergence of extreme right. In everything he did, he was the polar opposite of the average talking head in Hilversum: socially awkward, rational, and critical to the extent of being moralistic. He and Roel, the creator and presenter of the programme, consciously exaggerated their contrasts: Roel was the jovial television maker, Jos the smart nerd.
Moral high-ground
‘People sometimes wondered whether I wasn’t negatively impacted by the dynamics in the programme,’ he says. ‘But in the last season, which we recorded in a theatre, I noticed that the audience were often on my side, rather than Roel’s. Although you may wonder whether I was actually more often right. By always taking the moral high-ground, you set very high standards for other people, and I’m not sure this is the way to win the war.’
People were not pleased that Plakshot had come to an end. According to podcast maker Alexander Klöpping, it is ‘the NPO’s job to make programmes like this’, and the newspaper de Volkskrant television critic Arno Haijtema used the end of Plakshot as an example of how the public broadcaster is ‘digging its own grave’. This is what Maalderink thinks we’re going to miss: ‘A programme that didn’t beat around the bush, and wasn’t afraid to take a stance.’
Weimar Republic
At the same time, he is sceptical about how much you can achieve with satire. ‘Satirical culture in Germany was booming in the days of the Weimar Republic. And we all know how that turned out. And the world is in a much worse state now, in every respect, than it was when we started with Plakshot in 2021.’ He sometimes also got the feeling that he was preaching to the converted: how many people outside their own progressive bubble did they manage to reach? ‘That perhaps wasn’t as bad as we feared. People regularly accost me on the street, and not only left-wing thirty-year-olds from the Randstad.’
Bigger role
What’s more, it was the ‘ideal release’ for him and the rest of the team, says Maalderink. ‘I’m delighted that we’ve got the last season in the pocket. This was the best season to make.’ In the first seasons, Jos mainly played the role of the absent-minded housemate in the ‘joint apartment’ he shared with his brother Roel (they didn’t live together in reality). He gradually started writing more of the sketches and got a bigger role, particularly in the final season in the theatre.
Stage experiences
That was good practise for the show ‘Verbroedering’, which the brothers will be performing from September to January. Like Plakshot, the show revolves around everything that’s wrong with the world, and how to solve it. Which works best? Roel’s light-hearted approach, or Jos’ critical view of things?
His recent stage experiences have helped him consolidate his plans for the future. He is considering becoming a Dutch teacher as a lateral entrant – no, not a history teacher as ‘there’s no lack of historians.’ He’s always wanted to teach, but it never seemed a viable option. ‘I couldn’t imagine myself teaching a whole class, but this doesn’t worry me anymore.’
TEXT: DORIEN VRIELING
In Plakshot, Jos Maalderink played a magnified version of himself:
the smart, nerdy brother of presenter Roel. This spring, the Dutch broadcaster VPRO decided to
bring the satirical programme to an end. It’s a shame, Maalderink thinks, but we need
heavier artillery if we want to change the world.
PHOTO: IMKE PANHUIJZEN
‘You can’t
change the world with satire’
Jos Maalderink of Plakshot:
This autumn and winter, Jos Maalderink (1986) and his brother Roel will appear in the theatre show Verbroedering. Until recently, they were involved in the satirical VPRO programme Plakshot. Jos works as an editor for the satirical website De Speld and as quiz editor for programmes such as ‘Ik weet er alles van!’. Maalderink completed a Bachelor’s degree in history at the UG in 2008, for which he spent six months studying in Mexico City. He later took a Master’s programme in Latin-American studies at the University of Amsterdam. After two years working at the Tax and Customs Administration through an employment agency, he followed the post-graduate Newspaper Journalism programme at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
At the time, something drew him to Groningen, says Jos Maalderink. It was partly the fact that he had to go somewhere to study history, but it was also a fondness for the region. ‘My granddad, my mother’s father, was a true “Grunneger”,’ he explains in the bar of a movie-theatre in Utrecht. ‘He came from Sappemeer. A couple of years ago, I started exploring our genealogy and discovered that a murder had been committed in my family in 1873.’ Maalderink wrote about it for the newspaper Dagblad van het Noorden.
But Groningen roots or not, his years in the North were not the best years of his life. ‘I hardly ever left my room in Selwerd, I spent most of my time reading. It wasn’t necessarily a bad period, but I wasn’t at my social prime back then.’
Went viral
In those days, Jos was very much like the version of himself that he, until recently, played in the satirical TV programme Plakshot, which the VPRO has brought to an end after seven seasons. The programme mainly comprised sketches and street interviews. Many of the interviews went viral on social media, for example one featuring the question ‘What do you think about refugees?’ and another about ‘journalistic objectivity’.
Jos’ column
In addition, there was ‘Jos’ column’ in which Maalderink discussed a new social issue every week — from global warming to the emergence of extreme right. In everything he did, he was the polar opposite of the average talking head in Hilversum: socially awkward, rational, and critical to the extent of being moralistic. He and Roel, the creator and presenter of the programme, consciously exaggerated their contrasts: Roel was the jovial television maker, Jos the smart nerd.
Moral high-ground
‘People sometimes wondered whether I wasn’t negatively impacted by the dynamics in the programme,’ he says. ‘But in the last season, which we recorded in a theatre, I noticed that the audience were often on my side, rather than Roel’s. Although you may wonder whether I was actually more often right. By always taking the moral high-ground, you set very high standards for other people, and I’m not sure this is the way to win the war.’
People were not pleased that Plakshot had come to an end. According to podcast maker Alexander Klöpping, it is ‘the NPO’s job to make programmes like this’, and the newspaper de Volkskrant television critic Arno Haijtema used the end of Plakshot as an example of how the public broadcaster is ‘digging its own grave’. This is what Maalderink thinks we’re going to miss: ‘A programme that didn’t beat around the bush, and wasn’t afraid to take a stance.’
Weimar Republic
At the same time, he is sceptical about how much you can achieve with satire. ‘Satirical culture in Germany was booming in the days of the Weimar Republic. And we all know how that turned out. And the world is in a much worse state now, in every respect, than it was when we started with Plakshot in 2021.’ He sometimes also got the feeling that he was preaching to the converted: how many people outside their own progressive bubble did they manage to reach? ‘That perhaps wasn’t as bad as we feared. People regularly accost me on the street, and not only left-wing thirty-year-olds from the Randstad.’
Bigger role
What’s more, it was the ‘ideal release’ for him and the rest of the team, says Maalderink. ‘I’m delighted that we’ve got the last season in the pocket. This was the best season to make.’ In the first seasons, Jos mainly played the role of the absent-minded housemate in the ‘joint apartment’ he shared with his brother Roel (they didn’t live together in reality). He gradually started writing more of the sketches and got a bigger role, particularly in the final season in the theatre.
Stage experiences
That was good practise for the show ‘Verbroedering’, which the brothers will be performing from September to January. Like Plakshot, the show revolves around everything that’s wrong with the world, and how to solve it. Which works best? Roel’s light-hearted approach, or Jos’ critical view of things?
His recent stage experiences have helped him consolidate his plans for the future. He is considering becoming a Dutch teacher as a lateral entrant – no, not a history teacher as ‘there’s no lack of historians.’ He’s always wanted to teach, but it never seemed a viable option. ‘I couldn’t imagine myself teaching a whole class, but this doesn’t worry me anymore.’
In Plakshot, Jos Maalderink played a magnified version of himself:
the smart, nerdy brother of presenter Roel. This spring, the Dutch broadcaster VPRO decided to
bring the satirical programme to an end. It’s a shame, Maalderink thinks, but we need heavier artillery if we want to change the world.
TEXT: DORIEN VRIELING