if Home Alone, Die hard And all you need is love It’s the ultimate Christmas viewing tradition, so it’s okay Scrooge Live After three (memorable) editions, the book is now in the books as the ultimate warm-up for the Christmas holidays. This fantastic Omroep Max formula has been very consistent for years: a retelling of the famous story of the greedy rich man Ebenezer Scrooge with a cast of actors, celebrities and… the desire-Graduates, have this story narrated by a cheerful puppet who weaves jokes around the current events in the story, then give it urgency by asking for donations to a noble charity (Children Growing Up in Poverty).

Especially in this retelling of the classic Scrooge story Scrooge Live As professional amateur theatre, it’s often close to the edges of the canyon, but it’s fun. The third edition also met all expectations: Thomas Van Leeuwen had the time of his life as Scrooge, Henk Porte as Scrooge’s deceased ally Marley who seemed lost in a deadly serious opera, and Frank Evenblige was the narrator providing jokes about current events (“That Scrooge More fake than Mia and Dion in Liverpool!’).

Christmas gifts have fallen early from the non-profit tree, and that’s not an unnecessary luxury, now that all manner of Scrooge-like characters are ready to manipulate public budgets. In recent weeks, everything has been on the level of anti-profit populism, and this is also leading the professional viewer to increasingly question why on earth a public broadcaster exists.

Because we’ve been seeing on the daily program for nearly two weeks that the miserly curmudgeon need not always be wrong. Christmas is serious. if Scrooge Live He is a descendant the desireThen he is Christmas is serious Descendant Overall VIPthe show in which forgotten celebrities have to complete tasks like “lick the sugar off this lollipop,” or “warm up frozen underwear with your body heat.”

The rebellious boys and girls at PowNed always thought: We should do something like this too, and why not with pretty much the same field of participants as in Overall VIP? Think Wendy Van Dyk’s son, reality star Louisa Janssen, and of course Mike De Boer (unfortunately, Rob Geuss has already been killed off). On Saturday, participants had to whip whipped cream until stiff. Then you’ll know, because with the word “tough” creative minds can go in so many interesting directions.

Now, as an experienced TV watcher, I’ve had to put up with a lot, and try to deal with it in a cheerfully sarcastic way even at the gates of hell, but even for me there are limits. Allowing a curmudgeon like Scrooge to run free from public broadcasting may be a bridge too far, but as long as these utterly stupid kindergarten formats continue to creep through the net of genre directors and channel heads, a little sternness won’t hurt.