Putting the year to sleep

TV REVIEW: Tubridy Tonight Rings in the New YearRTE1, Wednesday; The Jools Holland HootenannyBBC2, Wednesday; News Review of the YearTV3, Wednesday; Elton's New Year's Eve Party: Live From the 02 Arena

OH HOLY cow. Oh Santa baby. Oh bleakest of bleak midwinter. Oh mother of godforsaken, tumbleweed-blowing, Irish television celebrityhood. Oh ye sausage-roll gods, beam me up, and spare me from ever, ever again having to endure Tubridy Tonight Rings in the New Year.

It's the overcast first days of the sniggering New Year, and already I feel like slashing the plasma. I hope, dear reader, you were out on New Year's Eve. I hope, like the beaming, dancing Dara Ó Briain (a man relishing his blessed good fortune), you were shaking your bootie in BBC television centre, rocking into tomorrow at Jools Holland's Hootenanny, while Duffy, like a smoky-eyed fairy on the Christmas tree, pouted in her pretty little party frock and crooned for mercy. I hope, dear reader, you were clinking the crystal with your nearest and dearest, or clutching a microwaveable hot bunny to your sleeping belly. I sincerely hope that you didn't attempt, like me, to begin your ascent of a precipitous 2009 in the company of Tubridy and his "surprise" guests, because, believe me, you'd have had more fun sucking slops from a festive beermat.

Pundit, comedian and man of quiff Brendan O'Connor was pulled from the RTÉ lucky bag to assist a crotchety and disgruntled-looking Tubridy (a host who never did live up to the sunny promise of his cerise V-necked sweater) get the festivities underway. Presumably the production team thought that O'Connor's trademark scowl and furry-tongued banter was just what the quivering population needed to jig 'em up for the recession ­- and boy, were they rewarded for their efforts.

"I have other options, I could be at parties - in case people think I'm a loser," whined O'Connor, having spat his way through a bad-tempered discussion on the state of the nation with daddy dourest George Hook and a fluttering Liz O'Kane, who offered her co-panellists chocolate Obama bars and urged us all to ditch the negativity and talk up the New Year. "Bad news is good for nobody!" she proclaimed. Sure, Liz, you just hold on to that thought.

Anyway, the cut-and-thrust between the two-headed Hydra of Hook and O'Connor was less than illuminating, their jowls smacking together in spittle-fuelled irritation over the merits and demerits of the anodyne blondy bloke who leads Fine Gael and the increasingly beleaguered Brian Cowan, sorry I mean Brian Cowen, or hang on, maybe I mean Brian Cowan, no, Cowen . . . Cowan . . . Cowen.

Damn, I apologise, it's just that earlier in the night I was watching TV3's News Review of the Year, which consisted of a bunch of news clips with captions running underneath, and, well, it seems that the powers-that-be at this Irish channel (one presumably staffed by people who eat, sleep and breathe on this nervy, cash-strapped lump of greenery along with the rest of us) weren't dead sure how to spell the Taoiseach's name, choosing to alternate their an/en options as the months of political thrill ebbed and flowed. It is a bit of a conundrum, I'll grant you: Cowan/Cowen. I mean, it would be so much easier for the caption writer if, say, we were Iranian and under the governance of the tongue-trippingly monikered Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A prospect which, although filling me with a certain dread, is no more scary than watching Tubridy's captive studio audience applauding Leo Sayer for still having his own hair (while the jolly little singer, by way of verification, was attempting to pull out his kiss curls).

The hirsute Sayer, another of Tubridy's surprise guests (oh my cup runneth over!), then sang some stomping old feel-good hits while scampering around the rows of the obediently jovial, party-hatted audience. My oh my, there is nothing quite so cheery as a torrential flurry of fake snow falling from the gantry on to settled ladies in their tightly glittering Christmas frocks, their hairdos bedecked with pirate hats, their robust, deferential husbands self-consciously sporting amusing Groucho glasses, all swaying to the beat while a has-been (except for the hair) rehashes his hits of yesteryear, corseting his girth under a shiny purple shirt. And the fun didn't end there, folks. As the clock reluctantly shuffled towards midnight, Dustin the Turkey, that side-splittingly funny fowl-mouthed puppet, who was our Eurovision representative in 2008 (lest we should ever forget), popped his little papier-mache head above the parapet to take a few perennially entertaining, cutting-edge digs at . . . Dana! Ah, why break the habit of a lifetime? Granted, change is not easy, but maybe it's time for a brave and difficult New Year's resolution by the bloke who has had his fist lodged in that old gizzard's backside for the last decade or two. Give that man an Obama bar there, Liz, "change", as the president-elect knows, is yer only man.

Midnight finally arrived, and the relief on Tubridy's anxiously impatient face was palpable. If this doleful line-up was the best the national broadcaster had to offer to welcome 2009 to the table, this year looks like being even more bloody awful than everyone is predicting.

As the hour struck, and a few hopeful fireworks spluttered around my neighbourhood, I whipped my trusty remote from under the shuddering cat and flicked over to TV3, hoping to see what those master lexicographers were making of the New Year.

Elton John, another corseted star lost in the time-warp of the shoulder-padded 1980s (but who most certainly doesn't have his own hair), was astride his glittering piano stool in his awfully big glasses, duetting with the rather petulantly fresh-faced Will Young, who looked significantly younger than Elton's toupee. Elton's New Year's Eve Party: Live from the 02 Arenawas probably jolly good fun if you'd been there drinking flat beer from plastic glasses and psyching yourself up for a winter walk back to your bedsit in Hounslow, but it made for impersonal television. As languorous footage continued of a suddenly empty stage and aimless balloons floating over the mute London crowd, it was time to return to the BBC and rewind Jools.

Holland's 16th annual hootenanny was, by and large, the only bearable celebration on the box. With his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra backing his studio guests, Holland's playlist was eclectic and bright enough to dispel the lingering gloom of the debacle on RTÉ. Dizzee Rascal, Sam Sparro, Duffy (and her identical twin backing singers, who were having serious fun among the salivating middle-aged male celebrity guests), the Ting Tings, Lily Allen and Adele (in a cardigan) shared the buzzing studio with those who had been around the block a couple of times before them: Annie Lennox, Ruby Turner and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas.

It is interesting to observe the BBC celeb flotsam who litter Jools's floor. Casually slumped around cafe tables with bottles of imported beer and expressions of awkward cool, they must work pretty hard to look so unexcited, which is probably why it was so refreshing to see Dara Ó Briain having an unashamed blast.

Imperturbable comedienne Jo Brand was also there, her hooded, reptilian eyes batting with all the ardour of a leftover deep-fried chicken wing.

When Holland asked her for her New Year's resolutions and predictions, she replied that her resolution was to get fit, and her prediction was that she wouldn't.

Later, Holland chatted with a sanguine astrologer who last year predicted that 2008 would see the US getting a woman president and Britain experiencing seismic shifts in the royal family. Prescient then.

Nevertheless, this tangerine-suited Nostradamus was undaunted, issuing a bit of advice for us nervous soldiers at the foothills of the spanking New Year. Apparently, Uranus is in opposition to Saturn (you could tell, couldn't you?) and we are in for a rollercoaster year. And be warned: with the current galactic alignment (or whatever), resolutions made in haste might, for once, stick! Whoops, maybe I shouldn't have thrown away that corkscrew.

Well, having vented my spleen all over your chirpy Saturday, maybe I should adopt Brand's other slothful pledge: to spend the year in bed in a straitjacket. Good morning and good night. Oh, and happy new year.

tvreview@irishtimes.com