The Angelus RTE, Monday
Sunday Bosco 2000 N2, Tuesday
I like it. A lot of people think it's just people standing around looking apprehensive, but it's better than most of the rubbish we get on television these days. Nancy Doyle of NIMRO, the Iron and Rumour-Mongers Trade Union, was defending that most maligned and controversial of one minute-long TV shows, The Angelus, on Monday's Questions And Answers. The Big Bells have been around for more years than many of us would care to remember and it is strange to realise that they used to attract an audience of nearly 10 million in the early 1960s. Not bad for a country which at the time had a population of fewer than half that number. In recent years, though, viewing figures had dipped below zero, prompting the programme's producer, Eoin O'Dinn, to introduce the "controversial people standing around looking apprehensive" format. Says O'Dinn: "The idea is basically that they're all thinking of sex, but when they hear the Angelus bells, they start thinking of God."
Initially, many viewers were confused by these strange images. Apparently, if one turns the sound down and plays the soundtrack from the film Jaws, the scene is truly frightening. Another viewer, seeing these zombie-like, tense, wary-looking people on screen, presumed she had tuned into the science-fiction film Return Of The Living Dead. (Another viewer believed he was watching an early scene from Mars Attacks!)
For years, of course, RTE bosses were content to stick up a holy picture on screen, accompanied by the familiar dong . . . dong chimes. During the period when quiz shows introduced buzzers, there was a movement within RTE, led by Ciaran MacMathuna, also to replace the Angelus bell with a buzzer, but this plan was strongly opposed by the former Bishop Eamonn Casey of Galway, who instigated a letter writing campaign to the RTE Guide involving thousands of clergy and concerned lay people to protest at what he predicted would be a big buzzing sound. The Bishop knew that if we must have an Angelus, we must have it with bells on.
Of course, many people visiting Ireland from abroad and coming across The Angelus for the first time thought we were quite mad. And, it must be admitted, we were. But by the 1990s, with church attendances rapidly falling, the prospect of jazzing up The Angelus, something that would have been anathema to Bishop Casey, became a viable option. It was also no longer acceptable to dismiss avid Angelus watchers as people who were, as Gay Byrne once vividly described them, only waiting for the news.
"I was outraged when I heard Byrne's comment," says Pat Nimble of The Angelus-Watchers Association. "Most people in our association watch The Angelus, and turn their TV set off when the news comes on. Many have never seen the news at all". He describes the appeal of The Angelus as like that of listening to bells, but with a visual aspect. "It's something I have always enjoyed. If I am not home, I usually set the video recorder to tape the programme. Last week, I watched several Angeluses together. There was something of interest in every one. Of course, like most traditionalists, I do not like the people standing around looking apprehensive format, but every one is subtly different, and I would hate to see it disappear from our screens."*
BOSCO 2000 sees the popular Irish puppet given his own chat show for an initial seven-year run. This week, he was in conversation with Minister of Foreign Affairs Brian Cowen and Annie Murphy, girlfriend of the ex Bishop Eamonn Casey of Galway (see above). It was stimulating stuff, especially when Murphy revealed that the Bishop had actually made her pregnant, which resulted in the birth of a son!! One can only imagine the controversy this would have created if such a revelation had emerged during his lifetime.
Bosco then revealed that Father Michael Cleary, with whom he plays five-a-side football for the RTE team, is himself the instigator of offspring!!! The striking image of the popular singing cleric involved in the sexual equivalent of his better known vice of chainsmoking is truly something to behold. I hope for Bosco's sake that Father Mick wasn't watching, as such an outrageous claim would surely land the pint-sized puppet in the libel court.
* I contacted the RTE press office about Nimble's comment and was assured that the footage used in The Angelus is the same every day.
Arthur Mathews is co-writer of Father Ted
The real TV Review is on page 10