TV REVIEW:All agreed that Enda 'looked like' a taoiseach. What does that even mean? All our taoisigh have been white, middle-aged men
PADDY O'GORMAN must be raging. For years, the business of wandering around Ireland, microphone in hand, chatting to randomers, has been his gig. He can knock a full half-hour programme out of even the tiniest town and it's a bad day when the empathic Paddy doesn't end up in a kitchen drinking cups of tea while a group of women pour their hearts out. So why, then, give the walkabout gig to Charlie Bird, who was so manifestly unsuited to the job that Charlie Bird's Election Nation(RTÉ1, Monday), was more like an (RTÉ) comedy than a barometer of the mood of the electorate?
Charlie zipped around the counties with a great big smile on his face, hearing stories of unemployment and reduced means – nothing shifted his giddy mood – while cheesy country songs played in the background. Everywhere he went he gathered meaningless soundbites, “We’re banjaxed” being the most popular. A young man in Slane explained that he had bought in 2006 and the house was now worth less. “How much?” Charlie asked, his eyes lighting up as if the property crash was a scoop. “About €150,000,” said the man. Charlie couldn’t have been more amazed if the man had offered to show him his three-headed pet pig. Then he came across a woman taking €10 out of an ATM. “Ten euro,” chirped Charlie, and then he laughed and pointed (no, really, pointed) at the woman as if she was some sort of recession side show.
We’re drowning in a sea of election coverage but this piece of flotsam was the most pointless yet and there’s still part two to come.
ANOTHER ELECTIONprogramme that's still to find its feet – though time is running out – is The Eleventh Hour(RTÉ2, Monday). Coming on straight after Frontline's leaders' debate, it had the chance to really nail its credibility with insightful, fresh analysis – and it failed.
On Keelin Shanley’s panel were Sam Smyth, Michael Clifford and Katie Hannon. But why pick only from the media fishbowl? Wouldn’t it have been interesting to get an analysis of the leaders’ performance from, say, a corporate CEO with years of experience of reading a pitch, or an economist or even a political analyst from outside this island, with no baggage and with a fresh eye? Instead there was consensus among the three journalists – an unusual enough situation – and much of what they said was left unchallenged, so it came across as general chat. Bill O’Herlihy never lets Gilesey, Dunphy and Brady shoot their mouths off without making them refer back to the match they’ve just watched – and that’s only footie.
All agreed that Enda didn’t disgrace himself, so he won – and he “looked like” a taoiseach. What does that even mean? All our taoisigh have been white, middle-aged men, so by that bald reasoning, all five of them “looked like” a taoiseach. Smyth’s comment about Gerry Adams, “People looking at him will think, he really doesn’t know anything about economics”, went unchallenged by Shanley. Bill would have made Dunphy give examples.
Only two clips from the whole debate were shown and both were of Micheál Martin in full flow, attacking Adams. Did Adams fight back? It wasn’t shown. Were they the only clips worth showing? After that, the five leaders’ handlers came on for a full half-hour – a bit like talking to the mammies after a talent show. The five backroom boys lobbed subtle digs at the other contestants (“He’s capable,” opined Fine Gael’s Frank Flannery about John Gormley, making it sound like a put-down) while getting in as many shameless plugs for their own little darlings as they could.
Unintentional humour was provided during Daire O’Brien’s piece to camera. He was reporting from Pat Kenny’s studio as the audience filed out behind him and, while the debate was the most-watched programme of the week, the live audience could have been passengers disembarking in Busaras having travelled from the back end of Kerry in a rickety bus, they looked so weary and desperate to get home.
A MUCH YOUNGERCharlie Bird made an appearance in Scannal! (RTÉ1, Monday) which this week marked the 30th anniversary of the Stardust disaster, the fire in the nightclub in Artane in which 48 young people died. Then a young reporter, he was in a couple of archive clips standing in the burned-out remains of the old jam factory. This tragedy has been the subject of many documentaries and reports as well as a first class docu-drama, Stardust, but this was particularly strong, drawing together with sharp editorial efficiency archive footage, including the scenes on the night at the fire, the funeral, heart-breaking reports from the survivors as well as contemporary testimonies from some survivors still determined to get justice. Barrister Sinéad Ní Cheallacháin articulated what many people still wonder: why was no legal case built up against those found culpable by the tribunal? There was nothing new here but it didn't matter – it was enough to retell the story, to remember the tragedy and to emphasise the injustice. Cathal Mac Coille summed it up, saying justice was not done because no one was fined, imprisoned or lost their job. It's a familiar pattern.
Earlier this month TV3 aired its own Remembering Stardust: 30 Years On, but not only did it lack the same breadth and authority as Scannal!, it had little in the way of archive footage – and that's the key to hammering home the sheer horror of this story.
THE NEW FOUR-PARTdrama Corp + Anam(TG4, Wednesday) laid out its stall in the powerful opening credits. Against a thumping as gaeilge rap soundtrack there were beautifully filmed, but grim images of neglect and decay – maggots, a dead fox, a burning car – flashed onscreen, segueing into a chaotic scene of teenagers joyriding – or diffing – on a country road. The teens crash, five are dead and it falls to TV news crime correspondent Cathal Mac Iarnáin (Diarmuid de Faoite) to get the story. By exploiting a grieving parent's lack of media savvy, he gets his hands on video footage made by one of the teens and discovers that the Garda could have stopped the joyriders but didn't.
The challenge for the viewer – and it’s an intriguing one – is to decide whether Mac Iarnáin, a feral, scraggy-looking guy, is motivated by personal ambition and ego or the need to expose the truth. He’s the central character – and de Faoite plays it straight and low-key. His home life is a tense mess, with two wayward teenagers, a father-in-law who he rescued from an abusive situation in a retirement home (there’s misery at every turn in this drama) and a wife – superbly underplayed by Maria Doyle Kennedy – who wants to get back to her own career after years at home.
One jarring niggle is the TV station’s newsroom: it’s so glossy as to be unrecognisable, as is his relationship with his cliched, ball-breaking female boss. He’s all maverick swagger, putting stuff on air without permission – it simply wouldn’t happen. Another problem is that everyone, even his elderly father-in-law – has a nasty look in their eye; there isn’t a chink of light to balance all the darkness.
It looks great: Darach Mac Con Iomaire’s writing and direction is tight and gritty, and the characters are strong enough to carry the contemporary stories he’s telling. Worth tuning in for the next three episodes and to hope that there will be more.
My choice: Not for timid readers
My Life in Books(BBC2, Monday) Will Anne Robinson manage to hold off on the snarkiness at the choices made by the celeb guests in her new book show?
