Eight years ago, a theatre collective on the brink of financial ruin created and starred in the legendary sitcom THE SITCOM. Despite (or because of) a lack of budget, the series became a cult classic. In a real coffee shop, a real group of friends came together and created something rarely authentic and radical. The series was hilarious and disruptive, but also deeply human and tragic. However, to the bewilderment of its ever-growing fanbase, the series had a jarringly open ending. Life had mercilessly overtaken fiction.

Today, sitcoms are retro, a genre from a ‘simple’ and ‘innocent’ time that we now often look back on with rose-tinted glasses. Producers know all too well that there is money to be made from this sense of nostalgia and so they decide to bring the group back together. How have they been? Can they still get on together?

THE SITCOM is a tragicomedy in which actors with tragic lives have to play those same lives, but as a joke. At the same time, we get a look behind the scenes of that sitcom, including the loves, the break-ups, the mistrust, the cautious attempts at rapprochement, the betrayals, but also always the hope that things will work out. The hope for a happy ending.

• DE HOE came into being when Compagnie De KOE and Hof van Eede, two related collectives, merged in early 2023. The permanent core is supplemented every eighteen months by a young collective. De HOE writes and creates itself. De KOE had been a regular feature at Kaaitheater for many years.