Well executed absurdity

TV REVIEW: The FrontlineRTÉ1, Monday; University ChallengeBBC2, Monday; The Execution of Gary GlitterChannel 4, Monday; Cérbh É?TG4, Sunday; Tarraingt TarracóiríTG4, Sunday; The Late Late Show, RTÉ1, Friday

IT SEEMS THAT no sooner have we swept the sweet wrappers from under the couch and shaken off the lurid coils of Halloween than the damn telly is hurling Christmas at us. Currently I’m engaged in diving underneath the cat any time I hear the nerve-shattering jingle of snowbells, as some unwelcome advertising campaign hatches on the box like a seasonal mutation, but I swear, as soon as those dependable shire horses start twitching their harness bells and filling our screens with acrylic snow and imported American beer, I’m checking myself in for a rest cure – oh hang on, I can’t afford one.

This is a tough year for trying to feel seasonal. On this week's edition of Pat Kenny's The Frontline, Mary Hanafin, sitting primly in her swivel chair, her neat little mulberry frock gently pleating, more or less admitted that there would be many people anxiously tearing out what's left of their pre-recession hair, waiting to hear where her Government's proposed social welfare cuts are going to fall. Hanafin produced little hard information for those wanting to know whether their pensions, children's allowances, dole and rent supplements were going to be eviscerated by the recessionary scythe. In fact, the prim, teacherly politician was saved by the bell when she was interrupted by a distressed and vitriolic audience member, who took Kenny to task in a loud, long and emotional harangue about the presenter's admittedly substantial earnings.

Poor old Pat (well, actually, not poorold Pat) does seem to come in for a fair bit of flak of this kind. A couple of weeks ago, his pretty face smudged in anger when Ictu president Jack O'Connor made comments about taxing "trophy houses", implying that Kenny probably lived in such a dwelling (only for Pat the polite to say that he didn't want that kind of "crap" thrown at him). And now, this week brings three unstoppable minutes of low-flying abuse about his personal wealth, and how it negates his right to talk about the struggles of his viewers in these straitened times.

The national broadcaster has made its darkly expensive bed, choosing to polish some of its ornaments with more vigour than the rest. Presumably, for the duration of Kenny’s current contract, what’s done is done and cannot be undone (as Lady Macbeth liked to mutter when she was wandering around her trophy home trying to wash the blood off her lily-whites). Thankfully he is doing a fine job on The Frontline and, as has been said before in this column, it’s a blessed relief to see the man at ease with his role. If I was that irate audience member I would have reserved my ire for the primly upholstered Hanafin. Those glistening and premature seasonal advertisements are going to have an added poignancy for those who can’t afford to turn on the Christmas lights this season.

THE OTHER BIGTV earner in RTÉ's mythical land of eternal youth and plenty (or "Turn-a-Nogg", as Jeremy Paxman pronounced it on this week's University Challenge, getting his erudite tongue in a bit of a knot and throwing the statuesque and well-scrubbed ladies of Newham College, Cambridge, into a state of perplexity) is Ryan Tubridy, who is, to be fair to the man, doing a sterling job as the newly baptised host of The Late Late Show. In this role, Tubridy appears released from the tension of having to pull himself to the top of the greasy career pole, and it has obviously come as a welcome relief that he no longer has to grin his way through hours of B-list celebrity tedium on Saturday nights, as he did in his previous show, Tubridy Tonight. A recent edition of the Late Latewas fairly sparkling, with guests Dara O Briain blowing gentle humour over the national idiosyncrasies of the English and the Irish, and the foppish Russell Brand crossing and uncrossing his skinny legs and getting into his badly behaved stride again after last year's radio naughtiness.

Bamber Gascoigne, a man whose name lives on long after his face has faded from memory, used to host University Challengein the days when students turned up in the BBC studios dressed in kaftans and love beads. The current batch of scholars pitching themselves against present quizmaster Paxman's impatience have a tendency to look a tad, well, straight and miserable in comparison with their hipper progenitors.

But, with or without the patchouli oil, I don’t recall Bamber ever asking: “What profession finds workers most effective during periods of high fertility?” “Strippers?” queried the brisk Newnham ladies of old waxy Paxo. “I’ll have to ask you to be more specific than that! The answer is, in fact, lap dancers,” retorted Paxo, before going on to ask the St Andrews boys to name the Seven Dwarfs (oh, all right then, he didn’t) – but I dunno . . . education these days, eh.

WRAPPED ELSEWHEREin the television tinsel this crisp week was the provocative – if somewhat absurd – drama The Execution of Gary Glitter, a darkly humorous fantasy that ended with the former glam rocker swinging on the end of a rope in Pentonville Prison (a sight that, if truth be told, wasn't a hell of a lot more painful than seeing him shaking his spangled booty on Top of the Popsin the 1970s).

The Execution of Gary Glitter(let's call it Eggfor short) was another of those drawn-out parables that Channel 4 occasionally spews out, designed to make us sit up, take notice and face the consequences of our political indifference for at least an hour and 20 minutes before we turn off the lights and go to bed.

Apparently more than half of Britain's citizenry support the reintroduction of the death penalty (they also seem inordinately fond of genuflecting before a dumpy monarch, but hell, who am I to argue?), so Eggtook as its starting point this not terribly startling public thirst for vengeance. The film then went on to imagine the conviction on child-rape charges, and subsequent execution, of the former rocker, who was memorably described as 15 stone of cabaret turkey done up in Bacofoil.

"This is fiction" read the unequivocal screen message at the start of the film, which then presented its vision of "a parallel Britain" where a person could be charged with crimes committed outside the state and where the death penalty was an optional sentence for murder and for the rape of a child under 12. Featuring Hilton McRae's spookily good imitation of a crinkly and yellowing Paul Gadd (Glitter's distinctly unglittery real name), complete with wispy goatee and PLO scarf, and some eager talking heads playing themselves (including Ann Widdecombe and former Suncolumnist Garry Bushell), Eggbubbled away until it was done, competently debating the merits and demerits of eliminating undesirables. The scales of this feisty little docudrama were heavily weighted, it seemed to me, on the side of not seeing the b******* swing.

PRIVATE WORLDS TG4 TACKLES TRAD GIANTS AND TRACTOR GENTS

Two wistfully beguiling documentaries sprang from the fecund loins of TG4 this week, both leading one to ponder on how appealingly private it must be to work and live in the Irish language.

Cérbh É, the first of a six-part series that attempts to open the door to the heart and soul of traditional music giants, followed fiddler Paddy Glackin as he went in search of his musical hero, Dublin man and fiddler Tommy Potts.

A sedate but poignant film, it carefully unearthed the personality of Potts, a man with "a certain sadness about him", an emotional man with an eclectic musical range who could hide a Rosemary Clooney riff in a trad tune, and who was described by a fellow musician as a Picasso of the form – a man who played music not for dancing but for listening.

Tarraingt Tarracóirí, meanwhile, was a joyful voyage following a band of soft-cap cowboys as they rode the byways at five miles an hour on their vintage reconstructed tractors. "Happiness is found in unusual places: in pistons, head gaskets, crankshafts and draughty sheds," we were told. Such a view made for a memorable, unique and slightly barmy paean to the eccentricities of country life.