Who's the winner? With Browne in the chair, there's no debate

TV REVIEW:AT THE very least, a debate needs several lecterns and a bit of argy-bargy. What The Late Late Show(RTÉ1, last Friday) called a debate wasn't one at all, more a predictable group interview, with the seven candidates sitting in a semi-circle as though at a meeting in the parish hall, all quoting liberally from the great big book of campaign cliches while attempting, mostly successfully, to completely ignore each other.

Vincent Browne’s Big Presidential Debate

(TV3, Tuesday) was the real thing. “I want a free-flowing debate,” said Browne from behind his little table. “No speeches, no talking down the clock, no porkie pies!” he said with that just-relax bonhomie that dentists specialise in before digging in for a root canal. The seven candidates, standing behind simple white lecterns, looked too nervous to be amused by his banter and they were right to be wary. Browne promised not to interfere too much, and he restrained himself for ages, with just the occasional off-camera “What’s that got to do with the presidency?” and “Yes, yes, but what can the president do about corporation tax?” in his trademark exasperated tone. You had to wonder, between Seán Gallagher’s plan “to send flares up”, the image of Dana on the steps of the Áras beating off those sovereignty-stealing Eurocrats with a copy of the Constitution, and Mary Davis sounding all schoolmarmish about her managerial skills, whether they know what the job involves at all.

As seasoned viewers of Browne’s late-night programme will know, once that world-weary tone kicks in, a red mist descends and the next stop is full-on confrontation. The debate will be remembered for the three questions that skewered Martin McGuinness, Mary Davis and David Norris. First there was Browne’s theatrical masterstroke when he quizzed McGuinness about his IRA membership and brought out book after book from a pile somewhere down at his feet, each claiming that McGuinness had been active in the IRA until recent years. Then his jaunty intro to Davis about her being “on more boards than Michael Flatley”, which later morphed into a pointed line of questioning about her lucrative roles on banking boards during the era of reckless lending, with an off-the-cuff aside about her huge salary for her charity job. And, lastly, his deceptively simple query to Norris, “From whom did you get legal advice?” about the letters the candidate had written to the Israeli authorities on behalf of his former partner. After his trick with the books I expected him to reach down to his magic box and bring out those damned letters.

The winner of Tuesday’s debate was Browne, with a low-key Michael D Higgins a close second because, while Higgins got involved in the debate, he remained aloof from the rows, chipping in like an elder statesman to clear up some finer point of constitutional matters and presidential obligation. As the candidates sniped at each other for what seemed like an age about postage and printing, you had to wonder, what would the Marys do? Impossible to picture the creators of the modern Irish presidency, Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese, in a bunfight like this.

THE CANDIDATESon the new season of The Apprentice (TV3, Monday) are a promising lot: mouthy, confident to a delusional level and mostly defining themselves in sound bites. "I'm not here to make friends. This is not a friend competition," said one. (Now there's an idea for a TV programme.) "One of my mottos in life is 'second place is first loser'," said another, while Bill Cullen, chief judge and bountiful supplier, along with a long list of sponsors, of the €200,000 prize, chipped in with, "Entrepreneurs have always been the catalyst for change," which did nothing other than remind me, as Seán Gallagher proves time and again, that "entrepreneur" is one of those French words, like "monsieur" and "croissant", that few Irish people can say without sounding a bit silly.

The product placement came thick and fast. The first, very simple task was to create a sandwich (chicken and stuffing or ham and cheese – how’s that for culinary invention?) and sell it as part of a meal deal with a vitamin drink. The prize for the winning team was a champagne-tasting session sponsored by an off-licence. The two teams first had to come up with a name. “Team Mercury,” ventured Maurice “I’m a Leo” O’Callaghan, which was quickly shot down because mercury, being poisonous, isn’t a great fit for a food-related-project. “But we’re poisonously good,” said O’Callaghan, not willing to give up on his big idea. “We’re eight of the brightest entrepreneurs in Ireland,” asserted one Cullen wannabe despite the fact his team had failed miserably, earning only €19 profit on an investment of €500. That’s the sort of bull-headed confidence that’s rocket fuel for any reality series.

CONFIDENCE ISsomething that the retail consultant Mary Portas has in spades, and it's what has made her TV shows, in which she has made over both high-street and charity shops, hugely entertaining. For her new, three-part series, Mary Queen of Frocks(Channel 4, Tuesday), she has become a retailer. Her big idea is that women over 40 have poor choices when it comes to fashionable clothes. "I'm 51 and don't want to look like a whore or a granny," she said as if they are the only options. But exuberant fashionistas tend to talk that way so it's nearly forgivable. What she needed was a retail partner, and, after months of cold-calling "I'm Mary Portas . . .", House of Fraser came on board, offering her 2,000sq ft in its Oxford Street store with the _understanding that in the first year her collection would bring in £2 million. _Presumably after she introduced herself she was also able to add that her idea would be backed by a three-hour TV series – a great big advertisement, in other words.

It turns out that when she’s working for herself and not entertainingly hectoring elderly ladies in charity shops, Portas is a bit of a pain, prone to flouncing off to the loo, randomly bursting into tears and saying that she wants her employees to look happy at all times – an overbearing-boss thing to say.

For a retail expert, it took her months to realise that her big idea, which was basically to sell the sort of clothes she likes to wear, wouldn’t suit the majority of over-40s. She’s skinny and tall and works her leather jeggings, tunic top and killer heels combo in a way that most of us could never manage.

Her team of motherly shaped market researchers soon put her right. “I’m out of my depth; I need to call in a proper designer.” You didn’t need to be a retailing expert to have spotted that.

Get stuck into . . .

Harry Hill’s TV Burp

(UTV, tonight, 7pm)

Back for a new series, the comic’s take on the week’s viewing is a guaranteed laugh.