Comédienne Jelka van Houten plays in quite a number of very dry Dutch productions. That must suit you, but there is no doubt that she always manages to portray those roles with great success. This also applies to Tropical Years, the dramedy series that will soon enter a second season.
Van Houten started her career just after the turn of the century with the film Liefje. The dramedy Bitches with Anna Drijver, among others, is the first series she appears in - as if in a single episode. A little later, Rozengeur and Vodka Lime and 't Schaep with the five legs join her list of chores.
When she also scores a guest role in Gooische Vrouwen, Van Houten stands out a bit more. Until then, she has mainly worked in smaller productions for television and film. A first recurring role follows in the cheerful Shouf Shouf Habibi! about twenty-year-old Dutch-Moroccan Ap who is looking for his place in Dutch society. They fall from one problem to another.
Not much later there are three series in which Van Houten shows her acting talent. First of all there is Hidden Defects, about a real estate agency in Amsterdam. This is followed by Mixed Up, featuring Waldemar Torenstra and Georgina Verbaan, and finally Wat Als? (NL), a comedy sketch show that is partly made in animation and addresses some major social themes.
You have only become a real famous Dutch person if you have starred in the Sinterklaas news. Van Houten did this in 2014. During that period she also starred in the moderately rated Aaf, based on the American comedy Roseanne.
During those years, Van Houten also played in Fresh Meat, a British comedy that follows six young people in a new period in their lives: life at university. Van Houten plays the recurring guest role of Sabine, a Dutch PhD student who is much older than her housemates and has a complete lack of humor.
After performances in Gouden Bergen and Trollie, work follows that may have earned Van Houten her greatest fame among the Dutch public. The sketch show Jeuk, where she plays alongside Thomas Acda and Peter Heerschop, is a perfect example of the very dry situations in which Van Houten can excel. Together with her co-stars and co-stars, they convert absurd and at the same time perfectly normal situations into hilarious events with a vaguely continuous thread.
In the years that followed, we also saw Van Houten in Random Shit and Zoek de Fouten, before she returned in 2019 with series such as Harkum, the comedy about a small town where there is suddenly a lot of money to spend, and Baantjer het Begin, with the origin story of the famous Amsterdam detective.
After the questionable Barrie Barista and Het Einde der Tijden comes Niks te Melden and Adem in, Adem uit. That brings us back to De Tropenjaren. In the first season, Van Houten plays the leading role of Rosa, a presenter who does her best to keep all the balls in the air. That goes differently for her. Henry van Loon and Eva Crutzen also play strong roles in the series, which was recently renewed for a second season.
If you haven't seen enough of Van Houten yet, there is also De Poli, in which she once again plays a strong, beautiful comic role in the gynaecology department of the hospital - where, according to her character Esther, the treatment is quite outdated. So, if you are waiting for the sequel to Tropenjaren, take a look at Van Houten's other work. A guaranteed laugh if you can appreciate the humor a bit. And otherwise there is always LOL: Last One Laughing Netherlands.
Are you a fan? Look here for more (guest) roles played by Jelka van Houten.
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