Radio: Wide-eyed wonder as Derek Mooney breaks his (very) short silence

It is fair to say that there are many in the world of broadcasting who love the sound of their own voice. It’s rarer, however, for a presenter to actually admit they miss hearing the sound of it. So Derek Mooney deserves credit for honesty when he bemoans the absence of his distinctive tones. This is not so much from the airwaves, where they can be heard with increasing frequency, but from the repertoire of Oliver Callan.

Opening the second edition of The Mooney Show (RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday), the presenter talks to the impressionist, asking if he drops impersonations of people when they’re “not in the media” any more: “I’ve been off air for ages and you haven’t done me for donkey’s.”

Ten months after vacating his daily afternoon show on Radio 1 and six months since the inaugural transmission of his Sunday show Mooney Goes Wild, the presenter has been given a second weekend slot. The new show concentrates on light entertainment, though this perhaps confers too much gravitas on the content.

As well as Callan, the week’s line-up consists of veteran English crooner Tony Christie and Swedish Eurovision winner Måns Zelmerlöw . So anodyne celebrity patter is the order of the day, though Christie shows some knowing humour about his public’s age profile. Tom Jones may still get knickers thrown at him on stage, but with Christie it’s “more like throwing incontinence pads”.

Mooney mediates all this in suitably chirpy fashion, imbuing even the blandest question with a wide- eyed wonder: he inquires about Neil Sedaka's composition of Christie's hit Amarillo in the kind of awed tone once preserved for questions about the third secret of Fatima.

Still, the apparent shallowness of this shtick does allow Mooney to occasionally trip up a guest. He innocently asks Zelmerlöw if he felt bad when his Russian rival, Polina Gagarina, was booed at the Eurovision. The Swede says he did, adding the Russian singer had nothing to do with Vladimir Putin’s anti-gay laws.

“Well, you brought it up. I wasn’t going to, but you got into hot water yourself when you said homosexuality was an abnormality,” says Mooney, with the insouciant relish of an interrogator who has successfully baited an unwary prey. “Have you reflected on that. Would you like to clear it up?”

Zelmerlöw makes awkward excuses about drinking too much and choosing his words unwisely, adding how sad he now is. “You said it nonetheless,” says Mooney, who twists the knife further by reminding his guest that “then you said you might consider dating a man”.

With the host sounding incredulous at this apparently contradictory state of affairs, Zelmerlöw’s embarrassment is palpable. One suspects that he, for one, won’t want to hear Mooney’s voice for some time.

On Today With Sean O’Rourke (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), the host’s vocal cords appear to undergo a Hulk-like metamorphosis as he broadcasts from the National Ploughing Championships. Normally the epitome of sober inquisitiveness, O’Rourke sounds like he’s fronting a fairground attraction on Tuesday’s show. It’s not just that O’Rourke is speaking several decibels louder than usual in front of a live audience. At times his tone verges on the manic.

Introducing former Irish rugby international Alan Quinlan, O’Rourke gets into some confusion about the number of World Cups his guest played in, and doesn’t take it too well. “I’m going to shoot someone, someone’s going to get tackled below the knees,” he says, his voice rising alarmingly.

Fortunately, the ensuing dull conversation on sports nutrition stops O’Rourke’s raging id in its tracks. Moreover, the show ends in a conversation with Marty Morrissey, RTÉ’s self-consciously idiosyncratic GAA reporter. This ensures that no matter how much he plays to the peanut gallery, O’Rourke comes across as a sombre newscaster in comparison. But it’s a telling snapshot of the giddily tokenistic atmosphere that prevails during the media’s annual mass exodus beyond the Pale to the Ploughing Championship.

Though its slightly misleading subtitle suggests otherwise, Nature On One: Ireland's Wild People (RTÉ Radio 1, Sunday) is a sedate look at a section of the population who are, at most, mildly eccentric in their interest in the natural world. Presented by wildlife cinematographer Colin Stafford-Johnson, the series unfolds at an almost meandering pace, with profiles that quietly draw the listener in rather than vie furiously for attention.

Among the gently engaging characters so far chronicled are Sr Enda Mullen, aka “the nun with the gun”, a conservation officer with the National Parks Service who says that “as a ranger you spend a lot of time looking at poo”, and Zoe Devlin, a late-blooming wildflower artist whose devoted husband characterises botany as “a good walk banjaxed”.

The most recent subject, marine photographer Nigel Motyer, seems more conventional: for one thing, his day job is in financial services. But the evocative soundscapes and exuberant conversation as he swims with Stafford-Johnson in Dalkey Harbour make for relaxing Sunday radio.

And Motyer has a winning awareness about his personal obsession contrasting with his career: “People say I spend all my free time swimming with sharks, and my professional life working with them.”

There speaks a voice of sense.

Moment of the Week: Late Yeats debates

Tucked away late on a Monday night, it’s easy to miss the last in the series WB Yeats: Sex, Death and the State of Ireland (RTÉ Radio 1). But the three-part strand is essential listening for those who enjoy radio that is unabashed in its artistic and intellectual aspirations, but illuminating in its depth of learning. With contributions from Yeats biographer Roy Foster, poet and playwright Paula Meehan, and novelist Kevin Barry, among others, it is public service arts broadcasting as it should be: not for everyone, maybe, overly highbrow sometimes, but not afraid to treat its audience as intelligent and attentive.