Andy is about to go on a first date — and, like many Irish people facing a potentially socially awkward scenario, the Dubliner is all jitters. “I’m a little nervous. I’d better perform. What if it’s not that big?”
He’s talking not about his bank balance or his collection of Funko Pop! figures but, yes, you’ve guessed. He pops up early in My Massive ****, a documentary commissioned (and asterisked) by Channel 4 as part of its 40th-anniversary celebrations.
Andy is more or less the only person in the film who doesn’t come across as miserable about the generous hand he has been dealt by nature. Quite the opposite: he seems rather pleased with himself
Andy is one of several men profiled in a doc that argues that larger-than-average men face unique challenges. In fact, he’s more or less the only person in the entire film who doesn’t come across as miserable about the generous hand he has been dealt by nature. Quite the opposite: he seems rather pleased with himself.
Channel 4 has been slapping itself on the back, too, as it celebrates four decades of scandalising viewers in Britain and beyond. That’s in contrast to the BBC, which has gone about its centenary celebrations with a thudding gravitas.
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The tone the BBC has sought to strike has been one of establishment fuddy-duddyness. King Charles popped up on the bric-a-brac series Repair Shop (although his appearance was filmed when he was still Prince Charles). Strictly Come Dancing was also dragooned into the birthday bash, with contestants dancing to the theme tunes of EastEnders and The Apprentice. And Jodie Whittaker’s exit from Doctor Who was rebranded as part of the 100th-anniversary week.
A more surreal overview of the corporation and its legacy will be offered on Thursday with The Love Box in Your Living Room, a 60-minute sketch show in which Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse serve up a sardonic look at the past century in British history. They will do so by juxtaposing kids’ TV and a surrealistic documentary in the style of the film-maker Adam Curtis, who uses archive footage to tease out arcane talking points.)
As shock telly, The Love Box in Your Living Room is still a long way behind C4, which is marking four decades with programmes such as My Massive **** and a musical about Prince Andrew
It sounds if not exactly wacky then certainly wacky adjacent. But, as shock telly, it’s still a long way behind C4, which is marking four decades with programmes such as My Massive **** and a musical about Prince Andrew by the comedian Kieran Hodgson, who also plays the tarnished Windsor.
Channel 4 says it wants to celebrate its “radical, irreverent and iconoclastic roots”. “If we must age, we plan to do it disgracefully,” says Channel 4′s programme director, Ian Katz. C4 has already started as it means to continue by reviving Friday Night Live, the landmark 1980s new-wave comedy series hosted by Ben Elton.
There is also Jimmy Carr Destroys Art, the Limerick-born comic’s broadside at so-called cancel culture, airing today. And, yes, that Prince Andrew musical, the broadcast date of which remains as closely guarded as the secret of how Andrew manages not to sweat.
Ireland lacks both a world-class broadcaster that could hold its own against the BBC and an upstart voice as potent as Channel 4 at its most irreverent. But as RTÉ is a mere 62, it has another quarter-century-plus to plan its centenary celebrations
What do these contrasting approaches tell us about British broadcasting? And are there lessons for Irish television?
The straightforward answer is that Ireland lacks both a world-class broadcaster that could hold its own against the BBC or an upstart voice as potent as Channel 4 at its most irreverent.
The good news is that RTÉ is a mere 62 years old, meaning it has another quarter-century-plus to plan its 100th-anniversary celebrations. The hope must be that, however it marks the occasion, it will be more exciting than the BBC’s fusty offerings — and that, unlike Channel 4, it keeps its knob gags to itself.
