Frequently Asked Questions
* What
is all that about Dirk speaking so many languages?
Let's put it this way: Dirk likes to study foreign languages. He knows
(a bit of) Dutch, French, English and German from school. He has studied
Ancient Greek there as well, but he forgot all about that. When he was
in his last year of secondary school, he started learning Italian from
the Assimil booklet he got from his father. When he was 24, he married
a half Spanish girl, and therefore he decided it was time to learn Spanish.
The honeymoon took them to Greece, so he learnt some Greek. He's been
to Russia, so he learnt some Russian. Four years ago, Dirk thought all
this "some Greek and a little German" should be improved into
"quite good Greek and fluent German". So, use your hobby in
your profession and ... perform in these languages.
So he began to study Danish more thoroughly, (thank you
Assimil).
Spanish and German are being tackled right now, and Swedish and Portuguese
will follow soon.
* In "Het bleekblauw Vermoeden (1991)", Dirk’s first theatre
show, Dirk had no musicians to accompany him. All the music was played
by his brother Christian, and stored into a sequencer-synthesizer.
* In "Stoel" (1996) keyboard player Kris De Jean started to
be more than a musician. He started acting. "Stoel" was also
the first show that could be booked in more than one version: solo, with
Kris, with 3 or even 4 musicians. Decisive criterion: the client’s
budget!
* The voice of the mysterious woman in her cloud in "De Kleinkunstcollectie
deel X" belonged to Mireille Vaessen, a Dutch-Belgian actress and
very talented singer.
The
real Mireille looks much better, of course !
* "Stoel" was performed exactly 335 times..
* Dirk's famous Eddy Wally sketch was performed over 500 times.
* In "Stoel" Dirk imitated 44 voices. At first, there were more than 50. But a sketch that doesn't work, is soon cut out. And the imitations in it, leave the show as well....
* In "Tijd" Dirk imitated 62 voices. 24 of them were new.
* In the autumn of 1996 Dirk demonstrated during a live TV -show (De Zevende Dag, VRT TV1) his capability to imitate 100 voices. Today he masters over 200.
*
The CD "De
Kleinkunstselectie van Dirk Denoyelle"
sold over 3,000 copies, which is a very good result for Belgium. The nicest
reaction was from Boudewijn De Groot, a Dutch singer Dirk parodied on
this CD. Boudewijn wondered when he had recorded this version... Also
the real Kris De Bruyne, Paul Van Vliet and Jan De Wilde showed their
appreciation.
* In his early days Dirk used to play over 120 shows a year.. One month
even 26. In the meantime he has been growing older (!) and the number
of performances is reduced to 80 to 100. To make up for this, he became
more expensive...
* Dirk doesn't really like to be called "voice imitator". He
prefers to be called "cabaretier", which is in Dutch about the
same as all-round comedian and singer. So if you ever bump into him, then
congratulate him with his texts and charisma, but not really with his
superb imitations... He'll love you!
* Does Dirk write all of his texts himself?
Almost. For his radiowork he gets help from Danny Braem (who used to be
half of "Braem and Van Gool", a couple of very popular voice
imitators in the eighties).
Since "De Kleine Kant" Danny is more and more involved in co-writing
for the theatre as well.
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