Radio Review: Not so much with a bang but with a rather flat whimper. Marian Finucane bowed out of daily RTÉ radio yesterday with the announcement of the winner of the competition to find the greatest Irishwoman.
It's easy to imagine when the competition was devised it was supposed to be a high-profile last hurrah that would capture the imagination of the public. It never sounded like it had, despite the best and very enthusiastic efforts of Finucane and the competition's co-ordinator, Eileen Heron. It was just too difficult to imagine such historically, socially and well, in just about every way, disparate women such as Peig Sayers, Sophia McColgan and Grainnuaile on the same score card.
Nano Nagle, Mary Robinson and disgraced Olympic swimmer Michelle Smith vied for top place all week and eventually Nagle walked away with the title. Smith's place on the list at least got the competition some international coverage as reported by Heron on Thursday, with newspapers from the London Independent to the Ottawa Daily reporting with amazement that Smith, she of the whiskey-flavoured urine sample, should be even considered for the title of Ireland's Greatest Woman.
Tánaiste Mary Harney, grilled by Finucane on Tuesday, as to why our manky, overcrowded hospitals are like big Petri dishes for the MRSA bug, ended the quite forthright interview by switching to a more chatty tone, announcing she was a fan of Finucane's and would tune into her new weekend shows in September. It was a bit like that all week with several guests wishing the presenter well in her new less-prestigious time slot - it smacked of a retirement party for the woman whose programmes are consistently in the top three in the listenership figures. Ryan Tubridy, who takes over the Finucane slot next week, will have his work cut out simply retaining those listeners.
Maybe it was his subconscious fears bubbling to the surface but on Wednesday, Gerry Ryan (RTÉ 2fm) went on one of his tangential rants, this time about the perils of working on TV or radio when a new administrator arrives and with the stroke of a pen, replaces a tried and tested presenter with someone younger. And when it doesn't work out, he went on, and the younger presenter doesn't cut it there are no repercussions for the suits that made the decision in the first place.
Phew. When Ryan's on a roll there's no stopping him.
All maths/detox whiz Carol Vorderman told Ryan that she'd being doing Countdown with Richard Whitely for 23 years. Vorderman, who is no slacker when it comes to spotting trends, has brought out a sudoku book and valiantly, and rather hilariously, tried to talk Ryan through the mysteries of the Japanese game. Apparently players should be able to complete a game in less than 10 minutes.
It's traditional that when U2 does something new, such as an album or a tour, Dave Fanning gets the big interview. To coincide with the concerts this weekend he interviewed Bono and Edge during the Brussels leg of their Vertigo tour and it was broadcast over two nights on Dave Fanning (RTÉ 2fm Wednesday and Thursday). Old pro that he is, Fanning managed to very comfortably spread an hour's worth of interview over three hours of broadcasting, largely by mixing well-known U2 tracks with the less familiar and even unreleased ones, including Flower Child and Levitate.
He asked the man formerly known as Paul Hewson, if he would be Bono without U2. "The thing I fear most," said Bono, "is not my own company, it's the lack of friction. I've a lazy streak and being in a band keeps me sharp."
As Gerry Daly and his panel have been shifted to a far shadier spot in the schedule, it's clear who the golden boy of gardening now is. The first of Dermot Gavin's new series, In Search of the Perfect Garden (RTÉ Radio 1), began this week in a Saturday morning slot that must surely be the natural home of a more workaday phone-in gardening programme that sets out to help green-fingered listeners instead of make them feel hopelessly inadequate and green - but only with envy. The idea is that every week Gavin will take listeners on a tour of a garden of a particularly gifted amateur, interviewing the gardener and describing as they go the various plants and how and why the garden is special.
The first one in Rathfarnham in Dublin sounded roughly the size of the Phoenix Park with an Eden's worth of plants. It was all very classy and cultured until the very end when cack-handed commercialism blundered in. They had reached a part of the garden which Gavin remarked was just right for some al fresco tippling and hey guess what, he just happened to have a liquid gift from "our sponsors" - a wine company. It was so heavy handed it would have wilted even the hardiest of annuals.
