Herman Finkers


Hermenegildus Felix Victor Maria "Herman" Finkers is a Dutch comedian, who is well known in the Netherlands for his friendly, dry-witted humour and his ambiguous style of storytelling. In his way of telling a story the moral should never be in the way of a good joke or pun. His humour is never at the expense of others, except his brother Wilfried Finkers, who is frequently the target of jokes. Wilfried Finkers co-wrote material and occasionally appeared in his brother's shows. Herman Finkers temporarily stopped performing in 2000, and soon afterwards he was diagnosed with a form of leukaemia. He was given an estimate of 10 to 15 years of life left. On August 5, 2006 a Fuchsia was named after him. In 2007 he started playing in theatres again, with a new show called "Na de Pauze". On 31 December 2015 he gave the traditional New Year's Eve performance on Dutch television, in which he remarked that the chance that he would become 90 years old was statistically larger than the chance that he died three years ago.
Finkers is a Catholic.

Tweants

Finkers has a strong love for the Tweants dialect. He has translated a number of his shows into Tweants Low Saxon, which is his mother tongue. He also wrote and directed two short animation films, which were completely in Tweants: Kroamschudd'n in Mariaparochie and his comic interpretation of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, the former of which is shown annually around Christmas on regional television. After his retirement from theatre, Finkers played a role in the first soap series in Tweants: "Van Jonge Leu en Oale Groond".
For his efforts to promote the Tweants dialect he received the Johanna van Buuren prize.

Theater performances

Most of his theatre shows were released on VHS and DVD, and several years ago a box set of all these DVDs was made available.