John Lanting

A nearly 30 minute long conversation in a living room party. Unlike in a regular TV play the jabber conversation can hardly be understood. Sometimes a line or two can be picked up. There's an intermezzo when Schippers alias Jacques Plafond comes to play one of his 'modern' piano pieces, to the disgust of the party's guests, whose chattering in the end isn't far removed from the piano play.

A family owning a traditional flea circus tries to survive next to the new attraction on the fair.

A woman disguises herself as a man to avoid prosecution for murdering her lover fifteen years ago. She is the last living member of a wealthy Vienna family, and has spent the years after the murder traveling Europe with her female servant. Her travels provide her with an anonymous cloak that allows her freedom of movement but little peace of mind. Nearing middle age, the guilt and weariness of an empty life has her contemplating suicide as the only way out of her dilemma.

John Lanting and his Theater van de Lach (Theater of Laughter) ‘De Koning van de Klucht’ (The King of Farce). John Lanting wanted to be a clown from an early age. From 1949 onwards, he led a very adventurous life, which he ended after four years to attend the Amsterdam Theater School. He performed with the Rotterdam Theater for eight years before making his breakthrough with Kafka's Monkey. In the years that followed, he performed this show all over the world. In 1971, John Lanting founded his Theater van de Lach (Theater of Laughter) and staged his first farce a year later. From 1973 onwards, the performances were broadcast on television by TROS. In 1996, Lanting decided to end his Theater van de Lach at its peak. He had performed more than 3,300 shows with over 2 million visitors.

One day, Doctor Kroch (Henk van Ulsen) receives a chest full of gold, accompanied by a half-illegible letter pleading for help. The doctor pays no further attention to it; the patient, after all, is asking for a cure for... gold fever. When the chest is later stolen by bandits Oenk (Tabe Bas) and Boenk (John Lanting), Doctor Kroch starts to think there might be more to it after all. He decides, together with his servant Valet (Henk Molenberg), to try to find the sender of the letter, the Duke of Woestewolf (Ton van Duinhoven). During his journey, the doctor is warned by Esmeralda, a gypsy fortune-teller (Elsa Lioni). Nevertheless, he continues his journey. “Ghosts do not exist. Everything can be explained by science,” the doctor claims. But the closer he gets to Woestewolf, the stranger his adventures become.