Sir, – I was amused to read that RTÉ doesn’t know why viewing figures dropped to 601,000 for the Rose of Tralee. The audience in the tent and around the country who endured the full length deserve some special award.
Thank God the Cork Rose was on early on the first night, before I was driven away by the awfulness of action songs and tedious anecdotes that were neither interesting nor amusing. Perhaps it’s the difficulty of having 32 ordinary people try to be entertaining when they are not comedians or professional entertainers.
What about turning the week of the festival into a reality show and doing away with the nights in the Dome? That way we would get to see the contrast between the ideal, sweet, national teacher types currently portrayed with the fun of 30 women in their 20s partying for a week. – Yours, etc,