Claudia de Breij is going to make a musical family show for the first time. The show will be about variety artist Heintje Davids and will be named Here I am!.
“For years I have received reactions from parents that young children sing my music along,” the cabaret performer tells AD. “But these seven or eight-year-old fans can’t really get along with the social talks in my conferences. And some jokes are a bit too rude for a too young audience.”
That is why De Breij decided to make a family show. Yet this does not mean that she suddenly “tells a story about a bear or a bunny”. She discovered that the life story of Heintje Davids lends itself well to an exciting family show. She calls it “a variation on the fairy tale of the ugly duckling of Hans Christian Anderson”.
The life story of Davids
Heintje Davids was the youngest of a Jewish Rotterdam theater family. Her father Levie David was a comedian and bar keeper and her mother Francina Terveen was a servant. Both her brothers Louis and Hakkie and her sister Rika performed like it Davids family theater and used this experience as a springboard for a theater career.
Brother Louis died just before the Second World War, brother Rika and sister Hakkie died in the concentration camps. Heintje was the only one who survived the war and continued her career after the liberation.
“Everyone told Heintje that she was too fat and too ugly for the stage, but she continued,” says De Breij. “After the war she still sang I can do it without you, but then the text suddenly had a completely different meaning. “
The show of De Breij contains songs from Heintje Davids and new songs from the comedian. According to De Breij, it should be a show for everyone between 8 and 88. “The story of Heintje is compelling enough if you just tell it, her songs are timeless and contagious. And I will add a little more childish joke to it stop than I normally do in my shows. “
Here I am! can be seen from 10 to 18 October. Ticket sales start on Monday evening.
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