TVReview: Hilary FanninSeasonal torpor. Big rain; welcome fitful sun; cold, cold sea water; sandy bruised apples in the bottom of the green bag - it's summertime, apparently, not that you can tell by looking out the window on this gun-metal-skied morning, but there is always tomorrow.
"Summer and winter seem enchanted to a stone." WB Yeats would doubtless turn (ever so elegantly, mind you) in his grave were he to witness his poetry being manipulated by a despairing TV reviewer; one who has, between hysterical, precipitation-induced bouts of running in and out from the washing line, been banging her head off a churlish LCD screen in the vainglorious hope that the ruddy thing might produce something worth reviewing. The truth is that, despite having finally succumbed to the saturnine Rupert Murdoch (metaphorically, you understand) and purchased a couple of hundred channels of dross, filth and more reruns of Drake and Josh than could possibly be considered healthy, there is still nothing on the telly.
Well, that's not quite accurate. RTÉ did play hide-and-seek with a bit of art'n'culture early in the week, burying in the near-midnight schedules an interesting, if somewhat corporate-feeling, documentary, Sculpting Life: the Work of Rowan Gillespie. But hey, with Gillespie being an artist of international renown, his work appearing in private collections across the world and known here for his Famine Figures on the Dublin quays and his graceful depictions of WB Yeats and James Joyce, why would the national broadcaster grant this film on his life and work a prime-time slot? Why indeed, when they can reserve that privilege for Charity You're A Star?
God forbid that the telly-watching nation might be awake to witness the creation of Gillespie's commemorative sculptures for Toronto's Ireland Park to mark the arrival in that city 160 years ago of exhausted and destitute migrants to that brave new world. Why burden the great viewing public with complex notions of the distance between the artist and the art? Why listen to Gillespie speak of the welcome isolation of his studio, where he and his subject, emerging through wax and clay, engage in a dialogue about their shared endeavour to bring the other to life? One could instead be watching a trio of former GAA All Stars in matching khaki murder a jungle jingle? "A-woo-a-hu-ha-oooh-oooh-jum-boo-lay." You want to see intensity, passion and truly challenging artistic endeavour? Look no further than Twink, backstage in her frothy Bermudas, coaching anything resembling a note out of Seán Bán Breathnach.
HERE WE GO again. It's Charity You're A Star, the grisly concert where largely unrecognisable men and women, crouching under the leaky umbrella of Irish celebrityhood, disgorge their blatant unmusicality in the hope that we pick up the phone and vote to hear their cacophonous discord the following night. "But it's all for charity!" wail contestants and judges alike.
This time around, the adjudicating honours fall to Brendan O'Connor, the suited cynic with all the bite of a set of palsied dentures. O'Connor is joined on the judging panel by the demulcent and glossy-lipped Amanda Brunker and - a surprising addition - Brian McFadden (often in shorts). Now, one might assume that if you go to all the trouble of breaking up with your boy-band (Westlife), and then your missus (Kerry queen-of-the-jungle Katona), hanging out with Delta Goodrem and maintaining an all-day five o'clock shadow, that you just might have been in search of a little street cred. Strange choice, then, to gamble your wannabe uber-cool on arbitrating between a bunch of wilted Roses of Tralee twirling around the Helix with their glistening fiddle and sturdy platform shoes and a determinedly humourless weather girl called Nuala banging on about the rain on her windowpane (the latter with all the joviality of an alimony demand). Maybe, for McFadden, it is an act of appeasement to the Irish public for shrugging off his teddy-bear suit and growing up. Or maybe he showed up at this garrulous party for charity.
So just how charitable are we? Last year's show raised, in total, just under €320,000, the lion's share (almost €150,000) going to Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin, which was represented by winning contestant John Aldridge. Temple Street may be lucky this year too, with former model Vivienne Connolly (a kind of convent-school Debbie Harry, sultry but a little too sensible) exciting interest. Beautiful, and in possession of more than one octave, she still, however, has to triumph over O'Connor's endorsement. "Don't discriminate against the candy," he said, which, loosely translated, means something like: just because she's lovely and female doesn't mean she can't win.
It's not all sweetness and light, though. Some of last year's charities netted as little as €1,000 or €2,000, despite all the banner-waving. More lucrative than a cake sale maybe, but then again, cake sales don't usually make you weep.
DRY YOUR EYES, there is good news out there, especially for the under 35s (although right now, just being under 35 would be good news). Anyway, according to the bubbly boy who narrates Fight for Life, the bloody and violently feel-good science series from the BBC, your body - one's body, I should say, especially if it's not as old as my body - is capable of the most extraordinary, almost superhuman feats.
Going under the skin of some comatose volunteers, blowing up microscopic images of busy little platelets (friendly, hopalong thingies that look like plasticine starfish) as well as boisterous blood cells and enthusiastic osteoblasts, the programme uncovered a veritable playground of body parts with cells capable, it would seem, of extraordinary regeneration and healing.
Throw into the mix some heady string music, a premature baby with a miniature tea-cosy on its head and the extraordinary story of an American bloke who volunteered to have 60 per cent of his liver lopped off and transplanted into his cousin, and before you knew where you were you'd become so overwhelmed with positivity that you'd forgotten about the paltry summer schedules and were duped into watching Rosemary and Thyme . . . I should have got out while the going was good and gone for a walk.
IT'S GOING TO take more than a couple of hearty osteoblasts to overcome a lifetime of distaste for the twittering self-satisfaction and jolly girlishness of Felicity Kendal. Rosemary and Thyme is truly awful. Kendal plays gardener-cum-sleuth Rosemary Boxer with lisping purposefulness and flirty moues and is once again the eternal mascara'd tomboy. Pam Ferris plays Laura Thyme, Boxer's rather more stolid companion, the one who gets on with digging up the herbaceous borders regardless of how many corpses topple over the balcony and crush the rhododendrons.
The premise for this whimsical series is altogether insane: two middle-aged, freelance lady gardeners are at the epicentre of a mysterious death every time they get a gig. Off they go to plant a vegetable garden and, next thing, they're up to their wellies in the suppurating remains of a special extra. Gives a whole new meaning to the term "grim reaper" - I tell you, if these two dames turn up to doctor your laburnum, run. This is Miss Marple sans marbles.
This week's story (and I use the term loosely) was set in a geranium-heavy town in the south of Spain, where an unlikely-looking old tennis pro was attempting to set up a centre of excellence to train future Wimbledon champions. Although skint, demoralised and surrounded by B-team English TV actors, he nevertheless engaged the services of our girls to make a couple of flowering racquets in the dusty soil. Whoops, bad move - the body count was staggering.
I have no idea how the crime was solved or why it was perpetrated, so astounded was I by the programme-making itself. One could almost hear the director scream "action" as the camera focused in on a stunned-looking actor scrabbling for the motivation to say something like "no pulse, I'm afraid he's dead" as yet another extra toppled over, covered in fake tan and joke-shop spider bites.
Oh where is the autumn schedule?