Radio Review: The first new radio quiz show in an age, Under the Whip (Saturday, RTÉ Radio 1), began last weekend, and as it sounds as cheap as chips it's a wonder, in this cash-strapped broadcasting age, that new quiz formats aren't tried out every month, writes Bernice Harrison.
This one is entertaining enough; most of the questions are based on current affairs and the two teams are each made up of a journalist and a politician, two professions that rarely need the lure of big (or come to think of it, any) money to get in front of a mic.
The perpetually alarmed-sounding Kay Sheehy is the quizmaster and the whole thing doesn't take itself too seriously. The way Dublin Lord Mayor Royston Brady was set up should send out a warning to other politicians desperate for a bit of airtime in the run up to the local and European elections. His song in the "what's the next line" round was Send in the Clowns (he didn't sing along) and then he was asked to name the 10 EU accession states. He said he wouldn't, which raised the obvious possibility that he couldn't.
"And you're going for Europe, Royston," quipped Sheehy, before moving swiftly on.
The panel changes every week, which is a mistake, surely, as successful panel games almost always have permanent team leaders to keep the whole thing going - so that would be money well spent. It'll be interesting to see whether producer Yvonne Judge can get through the entire series without picking up the phone to the media-over-friendly Mary O'Rourke or David Norris.
Voices that have never been on radio before were on Transition Year Project (2FM, Sunday). In an interesting, and what has turned out to be a productive, experiment, RTÉ loaned experienced producers to Transition Year classes in several secondary schools, to help students make a series of hour-long programmes.
This week's was from Coláiste Choilm, Swords, Co Dublin, and it was excellent. The students, who were probably all of 16 or 17 years old, came up with an engaging format of music interspersed with packages or interviews. They went local for their features, one of them from a rail-and-ramp skateboard park (there are an astonishing 25 skateboarders in Ireland who have commercial sponsorships because they have reached international standard).
Another feature, from the airport, had an interview with two plane-spotters. Spotting planes sounds like something belonging to a pre-Ryanair age, before people didn't view planes as buses that fly. One man said the balcony in Frankfurt Airport is the second-largest tourist attraction in the region. While I was mentally striking the German city off my holiday wish-list he went on to talk about a website, www.airliners.net, where spotters post pictures of interesting aeroplanes - a sweetly innocent diversion at a time when men posting images on the net is usually only mentioned on the radio in a very different context.
BBC Radio 4 has upped its already considerable comedy ouput and a new series of Absolute Power (BBC4, Thursday) began this week. It moved to television last season for a series on BBC2 and it didn't quite work because despite the star-pulling power of Stephen Fry, it couln't decide if it was satire (which it is on radio) or sitcom. It is now back to radio for a final series in a drivetime slot giving a real alternative to talk radio shows at that time.
Stephen Fry and John Bird are claret swilling partners in the London PR firm of Prentiss and McCabe (Their mantra: PR means never having to say you're wrong) and while they've just lost their biggest client - the government: "there was nothing we could teach the PM about deception except how to do it properly" - they've still got the BBC who want to put all that Hutton business behind them and win over younger viewers. McCabe annoys a BBC executive with "what young lad wouldn't prefer sex and drugs to watching Jeremy Clarkson, no, your audience is the bald, the flatulent, the knackered". Meanwhile Newsnight is about to do an exposé on the firm's involvement with "TB" (as he's called throughout), "they realised the government didn't stop spinning they just outsourced it". The script cracks along full of insider references and topical jibes. Writer Mark Tavener has set up so many loose ends in this first episode that it could go anywhere over the next ten weeks but it's bound to be funny.
Terry Dolan promised to explore dismissive language in Talking Proper (RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday) but the programme again failed to deliver. The production is lazy, with two doctors being interviewed (one from the UK, why?) for half an hour, smugly congratulating themselves on their communication skills.
"What's this 'five F' shorthand used by doctors?" asked Dolan, in what was the only lively and revealing moment in the show. "Fertile, female, fat, forty, flatulent."
Gallstones, they chimed. Medicine, it's a gas - for some anyway.