Benny Lindelauf

Last spring and summer, the Flemish theatre groups Laika and Froefroe performed two plays based on my books ‘How Tortot lost his fish-heart’ and ‘Wholesome stories for half a soldier.Laika produced the anti-war fairy tale ‘Tortot’ and Froefroe made ‘Prins Arthur’, a gothic thriller about a puppeteer who will stop at nothing to maintain his success. Puppets played the leading role in those performances. I have come to love puppeteers very much. It is so incredibly clever to see how they manage to breathe life into a puppet. It is also moving when you see how precisely puppeteers work together to operate one puppet and make themselves invisible.

I am really looking forward to a revival of both plays. When the time comes, I will announce it on my website. In any case, I will be in the audience. Breathless.

Marieke Nelissen, illustrator of ‘They had counted their sheep’ was awarded last month by the Griffel and Penselen jury.

Rightly so. For the book she made truly eye-catching images that not only tell the story, but complement and enrich it.

This autumn it will be announced which of the Silver Brush winners can take home the Golden brush.

Anyway, she already has my vote.

When I was a kid, I read a lot. The rest of the time I played outside. TV for children was, at least in my memory, only on Wednesday afternoons. Belgian TV broadcasted ‘The World of Disney’. There could be cartoons or a nature documentary, you never knew what was coming, but I loved to watch. Sometimes there was only a promising test image with ‘Please wait’. And now, at this very moment, half a century later and after a trajectory of seven years, ‘Fly the coop’ is being shot. A movie for which I wrote the screenplay. For the Disney+ streaming service, directed by Tim Oliehoek in co production with Elbe Stevens Film. To be seen only on Disney +. So “Please wait’.

Last year I was asked by Phion (Philharmonie Gelderland)  and youth theatre group Gnaffel to write a piece for a special group, or rather special groups: children from an AZC, children who are deaf or hearing impaired and children with TOS (Language-Develop- Disorder). Groups of children for whom the (Dutch) spoken language are not always easy. Together with Eva Wilgers of the Phion I visited a number of schools for these children. They were inspiring encounters, where language turned out to be less of a handicap than we thought. What we had no words for, we made gestures. Or we drew what we meant. With a head and heart full I went back home and to work. The performance ‘Little Neptunus’ is currently still being made, I am working on the latest version, director Rob Vriens invents the images and composer Thomas Beijer, the music. The music? But what about the deaf and hard of hearing children? Come and see, then you will see for yourself, the performance is meant for everyone.

Premiere on November 19, 2023 in Arnhem. For more information, check www.phion.nl

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