‘This is the grimmest item we’ve ever done, but we’re laughing. It’s Irish people’s idea of entertainment’

Whether on air or in print, Brendan O’Connor (RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday and Sunday) has never seemed unduly worried about discomfiting public figures. Even so, the line of questioning he adopts towards one of his guests on Sunday’s show is startling, even by his standards. “Are you capable of killing somebody?” he asks. “Have you had murderous thoughts?” O’Connor’s blunt interrogation is more suited to a prosecuting barrister than a chatshow host, though it’s more notable that the object of his grilling is not some hard-bitten gangster but a septuagenarian writer of highbrow fiction.

Perhaps the most alarming thing about O’Connor’s interview with John Banville, however, is that his hardball tactics work. The acclaimed Irish novelist unhesitatingly declares that he has capacity for murder, though thankfully it remains unused. “I can’t think of anyone offhand I want to kill,” he says. Banville then turns the tables, wondering if his host has any homicidal notions himself. “Not that I’m willing to admit to here,” comes the not entirely reassuring reply. On this evidence, one suspects O’Connor won’t be headhunted as presenter of The Book Show any time soon.

[ John Banville: ‘I’m 76 now, and I’m as baffled by the world as I was when I was five’ ]

But while the interview may not conform to genteel literary stereotypes, it’s an absorbingly idiosyncratic encounter, driven by Banville’s deadpan manner and fatalistic worldview: “There’s no depth of evil to which we won’t sink, given the circumstances,” he muses. By way of emphasising how thin the patina of civilisation is, the writer recalls once being helped by passersby after falling in the street. “I remember thinking, in different circumstances, these people would be herding me into a cattle truck going east,” he says, unconcerned about scaring off any future good Samaritans.

Brendan O’Connor displays his ability as a nuanced, sensitive interviewer, which is not necessarily his most obvious talent

O’Connor maintains an air of knowing amusement throughout. “I gather you’re a joy to be around,” he quips when his guest bemoans the grind of writing. But the host shifts gear as required, gently inquiring about Banville’s feeling following the death of his wife, Janet, last year. “Like an unending hangover,” the writer answers, with glum candour. Little wonder O’Connor hopes Banville’s new novel isn’t his last, if it means no more wryly reflective conversations like this.

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Not that O’Connor lacks other noteworthy guests: Saturday’s chat with the entertainers-cum-activists Tara Flynn and Rory O’Neill, aka Panti Bliss, ranges across social, political and deeply personal matters. Flynn unflinchingly recounts how travelling for an abortion spurred her to become a campaigner to repeal Ireland’s ban on terminations, which in turn took a toll on her mental health. (O’Connor, ever direct, uses “the old-fashioned word – a breakdown”.)

[ Panti Bliss and Tara Flynn: ‘We are slipping backwards’ ... ‘We are vulnerable now’ ]

O’Neill recalls his experiences as a gay man in an Ireland that has radically changed in its acceptance of homosexuality, though he notes there has been “pushback” recently. “Not a single day goes by that I’m not called a paedophile on the internet,” he gloomily reports. “It’s hard to upset a 53-year-old drag queen, but it’s depressing.”

Still, Flynn and O’Neill tell their stories with a darkly funny brio. “This is the grimmest item we’ve ever done, but we’re laughing,” O’Connor remarks, calling it “Irish people’s idea of entertainment”. The segment also underlines the way that the host, despite his reputation for pricking pieties and skewering shibboleths, tunes into his guests’ progressive outlook in respectful manner. There’s not quite the same snap as with Banville, but it displays O’Connor’s ability as a nuanced, sensitive interviewer, not necessarily his most obvious talent.

Such nudge-nudge, wink-wink asides mean the Radio 1 schedule increasingly resembles an open mic night at a failing comedy club

He needs to be alive to sensibilities during the Sunday newspaper panel, as his guests discuss the threat by Mary Lou McDonald’s husband to sue the former minister Shane Ross over his biography of the Sinn Féin leader. O’Connor sounds uncharacteristically cautious as he examines the wider issue of Sinn Féin representatives taking defamation cases over adverse comments, while repeatedly stating there’s no suggestion of impropriety over the financing of McDonald’s home, which Ross covers in his book. The presenter muses whether such legal actions represent a “worrying development” but otherwise treads carefully. There are some questions even he won’t ask.

There’s no ducking the big issues on Drivetime (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), as its host Sarah McInerney investigates the difference between big-brand products and their cheaper generic supermarket equivalents, with particular reference to whipped cream. “The own-brand ones aren’t as fresh and fluffy,” she complains, prompting her copresenter, Cormac Ó hEadhra, to dub his colleague “snobby Sarah”. Despite a “tsunami” of messages giving out about her reluctance to whip her own cream, McInerney doubles down. “It’s hard to get the right consistency,” she forlornly observes.

Well, quite. The item is an example of the Drivetime duo’s own reliable recipe, which mixes fearsome quizzing with knockabout slagging. The former aspect of the show remains as daunting as ever. On Wednesday, Ó hEadhra presses the Fianna Fáil Senator Lisa Chambers on the accommodation shortage for Ukrainian refugees, talking over her with questions. When her line briefly cuts out, one can’t help thinking that Chambers welcomes the respite from the anchor’s relentless barrage.

When it comes to the hosts’ teasing humour, however, there’s a problem akin to McInerney’s issue with her dairy product of choice: in seeking a frothy, light quality, they sometimes lay it on a bit thick. During an item on DIY, the social-media influencer Shauna O’Connor recalls her nervousness when she started doing home repairs: “The first time I held a hammer drill I was shaking,” she says. “I thought you were going to say something else,” Ó hEadhra snickers, trowelling on the double entendres. Following on from Joe Duffy’s laboured meteorological gagsmithery on Liveline last week, such nudge-nudge, wink-wink asides mean the Radio 1 schedule increasingly resembles an open-mic night at a failing comedy club. Ó hEadhra should stick to killer lines.