I've been to the future and I found this. The following report is from the Irish Times edition dated October 28th, 2011.

 

After an historic landslide victory, a newly re-animated Éamon De Valera has been elected as the ninth(?) president of Ireland. 

As one Fianna Fáil spokesperson put it: “We spent months watching the presidential race descend into farce. First there was talk about Gay Byrne as president, then Martin Sheen. Things really came to a head when Forty Coats put himself forward for the nomination. We at Fianna Fáil decided that enough was enough, and that real dignity needed to be restored to the office of president. And besides, we also realised that things couldn’t get any more ridiculous. So utilising new resurrection technology we went back to our roots, and re-animated the maggot ridden, desiccated corpse of our party’s founding father.”

Fianna Fáil party leader Micháel Martin attributes Mr De Valera’s success to his “instantly recognisable brand, and the fact that he ate his closest rival Michael D Higgins during a live television debate.”

When asked about his vision for the office of president, Mr De Valera replied: “Nyurgggh……urg gragghh, ummm….brains.”

 

 

Here is a radio comedy which I wrote about the 1916 Rising. When I first sat down to write it I decided I needed to know as much as possible about the actual historical event. For the sake of authenticity I consulted umpteen history books, interviewed several men who had fought in the GPO on that very day, and interviewed a very important history professor in Trinity college.

Then I got bored with the original idea and just made loads of stuff up.

 

 

Here's a piece I wrote for Magill in 2007 responding to Fintan O' Toole talking about the supposed lack of a major new writing voice in Irish theatre.

 

  Fintan O’ Toole wrote recently in the Irish Times about the current state of Irish drama. And while it was well intentioned and perceptive regarding the failings of one generation of writers, it failed to address the simpler aspects of what is becoming a perceived “crisis” in Irish theatre. At the moment there is a vague, half-formed hope abroad in the theatrical ether that a saviour of some sort will appear and drag Irish theatre back up to some divine level where it supposedly belongs. The problem is that a certain complacency about our literary tradition, problems of perception, and a lack of understanding of the true role of the writer in society has resulted in muddied commentary and created implicit expectations that shouldn’t be there.
    The first problem is our dramatic tradition, and the subsequent weight of expectation it foists on all unsuspecting new dramatists. While a lot of academics peddle the irrelevancies of Synge, or the experimentation of Yeats as groundbreaking, the truth is there are only two living Irish playwrights worthy of the title great. On one hand we have Tom Murphy. Extravagantly gifted, with an almost suicidal artistic urge to test himself. A man whose seemingly ragged plays are paradoxically an expression of his supreme craftsmanship. And then there is Friel; who with his lyrical and nuanced use of language and his instinctive grasp of dramatic structure, was once our most complete playwright. The problem with both of these writers however is that they both reached their creative peak long ago. The rot for Friel set in with the symbolically burdened Wonderful Tennessee. A play that sought to express spiritual joys, and yet became bogged down in a quagmire of dramatically inert philosophising. With Murphy there was a glimmer of old glories with his solid play The House, and a long overdue retrospective at the Abbey in 2001. However, Murphy’s art has been in decline also. Such declines are always to be expected. A diminution of creative power in a writer is as inevitable as old age. The problem for current playwrights is that they have to be measured against the great touchstones of both of these writer’s legacies, and inevitably they will be found wanting.
    The trouble with this though is the misconceived notion of tradition which springs from that tendency towards comparison. Tradition as an organic entity which grows with each passing generation. The truth is that writing, like any artistic discipline, has its uncontrollable peaks and troughs. The problem arises when the peaks are taken as a given, when vested cultural, critical, and academic interests combine to unwittingly create the notion of an inherent and lasting literary heritage. You see we like our literary tradition in Ireland. We particularly like talking it up, pointing to its almost universal relevance, and even extolling its shoddier practitioners such as Brendan Behan. Our tradition of literary excellence is taken as a given. And yet when a dearth of talent might point to the nonsense of this assertion there results a general disquiet, an unease, and anxiety. The academic establishment doesn’t help matters with their quest for classics, literary yardsticks; Harold Bloomesque objects of adoration and unimpeachable excellence. But art by nature is imperfect, and great art is all too rare. The current  flailing about for a great Irish dramatist is a both a reflection of that pointless neediness, and of the rarity of great art. It’s disappointing, yes, but unavoidable.
    At the heart of all of this critical soul-searching is the almost childish, unspoken and yet wholly understandable need to see “who is the best?” After all one of the impulses of any aesthetic is a certain tendency towards showing off, expressed in the writer’s need for perfection and the critic’s quest to unearth it in some grand new form. It’s that kind of critical inclination that led to the embarrassing emperor’s new clothes syndrome that grew up around Martin McDonagh’s Beauty Queen of Leenane ten years ago.
    Here was a brash new voice in Irish theatre we were told. Anarchic and revolutionary, with vast socio-cultural depths behind the humorous artifice. Admittedly McDonagh displayed a consummate gift for language and rhythm that was unparalleled. But beyond the linguistic tics, and a gift for humour, they was very little else. Instead McDonagh became fêted by people like Garry Hynes who should have known better, but ultimately McDonagh’s marketability won out.
    McDonagh himself took to the whole dashing young playwright about town shtick like a duck to water, displaying that worst characteristic of young playwrights - a tendency towards a belief in his literary persona above that of his art. There was even the claim that he’d written his masterpiece The Beauty Queen of Leenane in a mere three weeks, demonstrating  that other great failing of young writers in their tendency towards displaying how easily their genius is expressed. The assumption being that he was so naturally gifted that he could just run off a play replete with complex characterisation, humour, and social commentary as if it were no more than a shopping list. Of course that presupposes that complex characterisation and social commentary were there in the first place. But pity McDonagh, for he was only really partaking in that great mutual metaphorical pissing contest perpetuated by critics and academics alike. And ultimately his Father Ted on acid via the dialogic convolutions of Synge will be judged more harshly in time.
    For a truer representation of the state of Irish drama, and writers worthy of our attention we have to turn to others. In Conor McPherson we saw the rise of a writer with a supreme gift for tone, and a quality of melancholy mined from the most seemingly ordinary dialogue. McPherson brought a deceptive simplicity to the stage, and lent this very ordinariness a hidden emotional charge. However, Fintan O’ Toole was spot on about McPherson’s problems with action, and his reliance on telling stories rather than playing them out. McPherson, like most  playwrights is not the complete package, but then so few dramatists are while they struggle under the shadow of Friel or Beckett.
Mark O’ Rowe also has a wonderful facility with language, exploiting a poetic, sometimes violent argot, while again depending on the monologue form. While O’ Rowe and McPherson’s over-reliance on the monologue has been criticized, it seems some critics find it convenient to forget how difficult it is to write in the monologue form.
    But too often we hear another implied criticism. That these writers weaned on a diet of television and movies have no time for the mechanics of writing for the stage. This ignores the rather obvious point that different writers will always have different tendencies. O’ Rowe himself has always stated that film is his first love, and theatre is secondary. In fact O’ Rowe is potentially our most instinctively gifted screenwriter, adept at a genre considered too low-brow by some of the more elitist commentators. Unfortunately for him there is the bald fact of one produced screenplay in over a decade, a poor return and poor recognition of a typically untapped talent.
    Let’s also put one myth to bed for good and all. Namely the spurious assumption held by people like Fiach MacConghail that playwrights will be seduced away from theatre by more financially attractive media (God forbid, it could even be those awful lesser arts of television drama and screenwriting). All of this presupposes that the writer’s first impulse is to think of money, when in fact any writer worth their salt follows their artistic instinct, that basic tendency in every writer to veer towards the medium they feel most comfortable with.
    But again the snobbery hides something else, that imposed sense of belonging forced upon writers from outside. The unspoken notion that “you belong in our theatre.” The kind of commodification  and labelling that leads to contextualising a writer’s work, that leads to comparison, and that leads to that unease when a new generation doesn’t seem to be forthcoming. Theories abound that certain writers have found it difficult to respond  and express something of our rapidly transformed cultural circumstances. Yet what about the simple virtue of great art? Was Beckett’s finest work dependent on responding to such circumstance? Or was it his timelessness, his very uniqueness that now allows him to stand head and shoulders above so many in the Canon?
    What we simply lack is a new voice. A theatrical voice that writes with a certain magnitude and depth, with a sense of almost metaphysical inquiry, energy and force possessed by the true greats. That voice is always solitary, alone, coming from the outer darkness. It shouldn’t belong to the critics, or the Academy, and certainly not to the laughable notion of nurturing theatres. It is of itself. In the meantime, while we wait, let’s forget about tradition. Tradition leads to commodification. Tradition is a myth. The writer is king. There just doesn’t seem to be anyone worthy of inheriting the crown arriving any time soon.

In 2002 I wrote a radio play. It won an award. I got to do the getting called up to accept a big cheque routine, while having my picture taken with the head of RTE. Then I got to do the grinning like an idiot routine for a bit while looking at the cheque.

A few months later the play was broadcast. Someone, who shall remain nameless, rang me up immediately after the play was broadcast and cried. Getting the cheque was very nice. Having someone ring me up and cry after listening to my play was even nicer. 

Today's Rubberbandits segment on Liveline was cracking stuff. I don't normally listen to Liveline. Life is painful enough. The only other time I've ever listened to Liveline was two years ago when I filled in on the Sunday Tribune radio column. On that occasion I had the pleasure of listening to a couple of marvellous clerical gentlemen discuss the nature of magic, and it resulted in the following:

 

    Radio highlight of the week had to be Father Terence O’ Connell on Wednesday’s Liveline. Father Terence wasn’t happy about a fund raising variety show for a trip to Lourdes. His misgivings centred on two children who would be performing magic tricks at the event organised by the Jesuits of the Crescent College Limerick. Joe Duffy wanted to know what the problem was. Father Terence said that magic was bad, magic was sinful, magic was akin to idolatry. Father Terence didn’t really explain how it was akin to idolatry. “What’s wrong with children pulling doves out of a hat?” asked Joe. Producing a dove out of a hanky was wrong said Father Terence. Joe had said hat. He let it pass. Joe is good like that.
    Father Terence started quoting from Leviticus and Deuteronomy. He gave definitions of magic from the internet. He was particularly intent on explaining sleight of hand as “a kind of a French kind of thing”, and you wondered if Father Terence saw France as a particularly degenerate place where people might pull doves out of hankies at the drop of a rabbit filled hat. Joe apologised as he brought up the subject of transubstantiation. “That’s faith, Joe. That’s faith.” “That’s not magic?”
“God almighty, no. That’s the invocation of the holy spirit.”
    Seventy three year old Patrick stepped up to the plate. Patrick has been doing magic all his life. He reminisced about the funeral of a Canon Horan in Galway, and how he was asked by the Bishop to perform on the altar: “When he died I performed a trick on the altar in front of the bishop and beside his coffin. I made a hanky change colour. A red hanky changed into a green hanky and changed back again, and I got a big clap for it and the bishop clapped me.”  Joe made a noise, like a small mouse being strangled. Patrick talked about bringing happiness to nursing homes. Father Terence was having none of it: “The Devil will bring happiness to anyone.” “What?!” roared Patrick. “The devil will bring happiness to anyone” repeated Father Terence. “He will, if you listen to him. I don’t listen to the devil!” Patrick hit back, as Joe made a faint gurgling sound.
    Father Damien Ryan, a friend of Father Terence’s intervened. His beseeching tone recalled Barry Desmond’s “you’ll burst up the party” address to Albert Reynolds, but with the added risk of him bursting into real tears. Then it was the turn of Keith Barry’s Da who was merciless: “You have to put things in CON-TEXT. Do you understand that word? CON-TEXT?” By the time Keith Barry’s Da was finished there was very little of Father Terence left.
    At the programme’s close Father Terence was alone, like a solitary maverick against the magic wand waving fez wearing apocalypse which will no doubt engulf us all. Perhaps he can start his own form of the Spanish Inquisition and do us all a favour and hunt down Paul Daniels. We live in hope.
    The maverick Tom Parlon was on Morning Ireland on Tuesday weaving his own brand of magic. As CIF Director General his messianic mojo is back, and Tom was talking about the idea of freezing building workers pay for a year, and cutting the entry rate into the industry to €10.50 per hour (to protect the industry and jobs you understand).
    Tom is one of the true visionaries of post Celtic Tiger Ireland, who knows that in order to go forward we must go back. Particularly in a climate in which the hotel and ferry industry can dispense with the ludicrous constraints of labour law and fair pay for all. Tom isn’t happy with the eighteen year old “total greenhorns”  to whom “we’re obliged to pay €14.88, which is above the average industrial wage.” If visionaries like Tom have their way we’ll soon be sending our children up chimneys, and sure isn’t that how it should be? Welcome back Tom. Oh how we missed you.

    Ever since Crazy Mary had seen Stinky Bill fight Mike the Rat for a piece of orange rind she’d loved him. Loved him like no other woman had loved a man before.
Except for the way maybe Jericho Jim had loved his coconut. But that was different, that was a coconut. Yes, it was different. As different as two things could be.
    <Ovidean digression about the transformative nature of love to be inserted here - 16 paragraphs>
    Bill was handsome. Dangerously so. She loved his manly walk, the way he lifted his bad leg (with both hands) rather than dragging it behind him like many of his contemporaries.
    Then there were his eyes. A piercing blue. Well, the left one. The other one had some kind of yellow stuff caked over it. She loved his manly face, and his sculpted cheeks, particularly the one which roamed freely up and down the left side of his face.
    Sometimes she thought she saw something in his eye. Desire? Need? Hunger? Or just normal hunger? Like the hunger he had for that carrot they saw that one time stuck between the tyre threads of that old car.
    Whenever she saw him she trembled with desire, and palsy (but mainly palsy).
She thought about flirting with him like a wanton, maybe running her tongue over her two good teeth. But she was a lady, and she thought fluttering her eyelashes might be more appropriate.
    Except she didn’t have eyelashes.
    What was a girl in love to do? Or lady in love? Or old lady? She wasn’t too sure about her age.
    She didn’t remember very much, except something about a white picket fence, a happy family, smiling children, a caring husband…no, wait, that was that Movie of the Week she saw that one time. Damn.
    Stinky Bill filled her very achey wakey moment. And sometimes her sleep, if the wind was blowing the right way. Would she ever share a moment with him? A moment so explosive they would be bonded by love forever?
    Then one night in the old abandoned warehouse she saw an opportunity.
    They were alone. Alone except for the clinky clanky chains and the whispery wind and the softy <insert appropriate s word for alliteration later> stars.
    He stood over. She felt his hot stinky breath on her neck. “Whuddya wunnah do?” he said to her gruffly, but like, sensitively too. Yes, he was a mixture of sensitivity and gruffness. He was a real man. A man who could weep.
    And not just for pus related reasons.
    And it wouldn’t have anything to do with boils either. Yeah, I mean like weeping for sensitive emotional reasons.
    This was it, she thought. The moment that would change her life. They would be together forever and ever, maybe even longer. Her future flashed before her in Technicolour.
    They could maybe share a shopping trolley. Take trips together to the local dump, maybe find some tarpaulin and build a home. They could get a cat, or maybe a half dozen or so. And they’d have tins, lots of tins. For putting stuff in. A shopping trolley piled high with love, and cats, and tins (for putting stuff in).
    Stinky Bill loomed over her in the dark, like that big leany tower in that place in Europe somewhere.
    “Take me. Take me now” she said huskily.
    “Where?” he grunted manfully.
    “Here” she replied. “Right here.”
    “Bud we’s already heaw” he replied. Confusedly.
    She explained what she meant.
    Three times.
    “Ugh right” he gurgled and grinned.
    She felt his rough, manly, dusty, soiled, paint streaked, meth splashed hands on her. He unbuttoned her overcoat. She gasped as he threw it onto the ground.
    Then he unbuttoned her second overcoat. Then he took off her anorak, her sweater, her cardigan, her gabardine coat, her raincoat, her wool cardigan, her other raincoat, her duffle coat, her lumber jack shirt, her rainproof jacket, her nylon cardigan, her tracksuit top, her denim jacket, her waistcoat…
    He was sweating - even more than usual.
    He collapsed right before he got to her donkey jacket.
    He lay panting on the ground. She lay down beside him and groped for him in the dark. Her hand closed around his, she hoped, because she hadn’t had any feeling in it since jumping that freight train in ‘55.
    She allowed herself a smile as she listened to his deep phlegmy breathing. And as she closed her eyes she started to dream of trips to the dump, 16 day old beef, cats and tins (for putting stuff in).

                                                                                       THE END.

This is a piece about Irish satire which I wrote for Village in 2009. I was inspired to post it after reading about Oliver Callan on last night’s Late Late Show.

    June 2007, and writer Julian Gough appears on the Late Late Show to publicise his soon to be released novel, Jude Level 1. It’s a satirical look at modern Ireland through the prism of its hapless anti-hero. Pat Kenny asks how Gough has tackled the subject of child abuse in the book. Gough outlines a conceit he uses in the novel, and he describes the Catholic hierarchy suing hundreds of thousands of children for having abused a poor victimised clergy. Gough’s description of this is met with slight titters. Listening back on Youtube you can almost hear what sounds like a low horrified moan from one member of the audience.
    Flash forward to the Late Late in October 2008. Alan Shortt appears as Brian Cowen with a pint in hand, and what looks like a pillow tucked under his shirt. He uses the word “fuck” in his opening gambit with Pat Kenny, and the audience explodes with delight. At one point he even says “knickers” and there are hoots of laughter. Pat Kenny sets up the gags, and Shortt responds with some jokes that make no sense, and others that peter off into nothingness. The satire, and we’re being charitable here, is aimless and lacking in bite. The delighted audience doesn’t seem bothered by this. Pakie O’ Callaghan then does an impression of Charlie McCreevy, but again, there are no jokes, and it all ends in a singalong.
    There is a gulf between these two moments that speaks volumes about the state of Irish satire in recent years. In one corner is the scalpel-like precision of Gough. In the other corner the remnants of Bull Island flail about with the verbal equivalent of badly aimed custard pies. Gough’s conceit was pitch perfect. With one deft satirical reversal he exposed the arrogance of an organisation unwilling to face up to its responsibilities. Meanwhile, Alan Shortt and Pakie O’ Callaghan fell back on the tired Irish tradition of nodding, winking, and gurning while saying nothing of substance. It was parish hall stuff, and it lacked the innate sense of purpose, focus, and undercurrent of contempt and vitriol which makes real satire work.
    Jonathan Swift understood these forces, and he applied them perfectly in his writing. These days it’s hard to imagine anyone possessing both the same keen sense of social injustice, and the talent to transmute that anger into dispassionate and cutting work. Contempt was the engine that drove Swift’s A Modest Proposal, and he masked that contempt with technique, without diluting the strength and vigour of what he’d written. Swift understood both the simplicity and complexity of satire. He understood it’s architecture, and he understood its ability to explore, unearth, and rupture the hypocrisy that lay at the heart of his society. At its heart his satire worked because he had a clear sense of focus. He knew his targets, and he knew how to deploy his weapons, and he had the talent and will to make it work.
    Back in the late eighties and early nineties Gerry Stembridge’s work on Scrap Saturday was a perfect example of a clear-eyed sense of focus, and of a satirist using his craft to achieve an end. At times all it took was a bit of diddly aye music in the background and Dermot Morgan pontificating as Charlie Haughey about his ancestral roots in China, and we had the perfect presentation of one man’s boundless vanity in thirty seconds. Compare that to the sloppy meanderings of the Bull Island crew a few years ago, and John Ryan’s woefully conceived This is Nightlive. Unfortunately since Scrap Saturday’s demise nothing  has even come close to addressing the follies of Irish culture and society with the same degree of wit and intelligence. It seems easier to put on a few funny voices and wink while punning furiously in front of a Late Late Show audience.
    Now that we have 2FM’s Nob Nation being upheld as a supposedly worthy successor to Scrap Saturday, there are those who will loudly proclaim the spurious myth that satire only thrives during a recession. For some fanciful theorists it’s as if idiocy and human absurdity are qualities that only come to the fore when certain temporal and cultural forces are aligned. As for Nob Nations’s credentials, you have to ask if it really satisfies the gold standard of great satire.
    Great satire peeks behind the façade of public life and it does this through humour which is crafted with one eye on laughs and the other on sub-text. Satire is about truth. That truth is unveiled most successfully through well crafted jokes which have a symmetry, intelligence and purpose. When Nob Nation’s Oliver Callan caricatures Cowen and his booze-soaked cabinet they are squeezed into a tatty caravan. The jokes, such as they are, are usually scattered throughout a formless imbroglio of puns, swear words and slapstick. Everything is paced with the same sense of panic and urgent need to please as we reel from one gag to the next. It’s the comedy equivalent of hurling muck at a wall to see what sticks, only to watch it all pool into a formless mess upon the ground. The Nob Nation universe seems to lack any sense of logic, when logic, even in an absurd universe, should underpin everything. What we’re left with are broad caricatures and a lack of direction. Something one-note and unfocused, where a Gerry Stembridge would have applied a sense of something worth saying, even in the most seemingly throwaway sketch.
    There are of course external factors influencing the parlous state of Irish satire. You only have to look at the recent farce in which Oliver Callan was told to “go easy” on Brian Cowen by RTE. Fears were expresses that Callan’s caricature of Cowen was pushing Nob Nation towards the realms of “opinion.” A strange accusation, when, surely a satirist starts with an opinion and builds their work around it. But this is nothing new, since rumours of political interference in the axing of Scrap Saturday  there has always been a lack of will when it comes to addressing the ills of this nation through the medium of humour. The result is that most subsequent attempts at the genre have been neutered. Instead we now live in an Ireland where saying knickers and fuck on national television has become the apogee of satirical comment, and we’ve arrived here because there is no real appetite for provocation on the part of broadcasters. On an island where interest groups at all levels of society are so inextricably linked, the crippling fear of causing offence has left us creatively hamstrung. What we have left to fill the gap is an appetite for infantilism in our humour, when satirists should be pouring scorn on the infantilism of our political representatives.
    The late Dave Allen was arguably our most important comedian. He was a man who scorned the absurdity and hypocrisy of political and religious institutions. And yet here was also a man whose career would never have thrived in an Ireland polluted by self-interest and the kind of public service nervous ninnyism that afflicts all levels of our society. Instead Allen took his scorn abroad. He channelled his invective and bile, and crafted it into something lucid and concentrated. The nearest thing we have to Allen now is Tommy Tiernan, and although they are both worlds away in terms of style, there is still that sense of the incredulous that has informed the work of both men. Unfortunately Tommy Tiernan’s greatest sin is to deploy the word fuck whenever he feels like. Fuck used as a form of exasperated punctuation, like bullets from a machine gun, in a country where fuck is only accepted by middle Ireland when used by toothless satirists; and those with an eye on their next public speaking engagement looking to cause embarrassed titters among the granny set. The maligned Tommy swears and grins, pointing out the absurd and ridiculous like an over-excited child at a freak show attempting to pass itself off as a polite tea party. Meanwhile, the offended huff and puff, and attempt to distract attention away from the drooling shambling guests.
    Excuses are also made when the lack of any willingness to engage with those in power is brought up. The “stuff at the tribunals is beyond satire”, and sure what need do we have of poking a few jokes at the ludicrous explanations for the unconventional nature of  Bertie Ahern’s finances? It’s these kind of  excuses that point to a lack of appetite for engaging with Irish society and falling back on the puerile. Excuses have often been made that for great satire to exist there has to be an appetite for it from the public, and a need to feel one’s anger crystallised in that form. If that is true, then how do we explain the vacuum that existed in the miserable eighties? A vacuum filled all too fleetingly by Scrap Saturday.
    The real truth is that bad satirists, and faint-hearted broadcasters are the ones without appetite; and without an appetite, a willingness, and a real desire to amuse and provoke at the same time, all we have left is badly crafted caricature. It’s the one dimensional representation of buffoonery without an underlying purpose. The putting on of clown make up and stepping in buckets of water, while parping the horn on a little yellow car. It’s fine for the circus ring and a world filled with candy floss, but it tells us nothing of human nature and the abuse and misuse of power.
    Fortunately there is a beacon of hope on the horizon. Newstalk’s satirical programme, The Emergency, has expressed a willingness to emulate Scrap Saturday. Most encouraging of all is the tone of the sketches on the emergency. Where Callan and co prefer a lazy, schoolyard tone, The Emergency is fuelled by an obvious sense of contempt for the powerful. It’s that willingness to use invective and to foreground sub-text, rather than going for cheap laughs that epitomises true satire. The Emergency is only in its infancy, but even now it has more form and purpose than its RTE  counterpart.
    Of course purpose is one thing, the ability to harness that energy has to be reflected in writing of necessary quality. For all of our talk of our great literary tradition, we seem to put a very low premium on satirical writing as a craft in itself, and instead we find ourselves sidetracked by the most puerile, and, revealing concerns. Possibly the saddest reflection of the state of Irish satire was the spectacle last year of Oliver Callan accusing Mario Rosentsock of Gift Grub fame of being unable to impersonate Brian Cowen. Cowen’s voice became the new Holy Grail of Irish satire, and the ability to do a funny voice once again was all that seemed to matter.
    It’s hard to imagine the pioneers of  That Was the Week That Was, in sixties Britain becoming sidetracked by such an issue. But then they were concentrating on the writing, treating their craft with the respect it was due, honing it, perfecting it, and creating jokes that provoked and made people laugh. Julian Gough has spoken about the influence of The Simpsons on his work. It’s an influence that has paid off in well crafted set-pieces and gags. If Irish satire on television and radio can assimilate the same influences, and approach things with honesty and creative rigour, then maybe we can have the beginnings of a satirical tradition worth talking about. Only then can we hope to walk free of the influence of the parish hall and the pantomime.

    Twenty seven years ago an angry, ashen-faced, and pitiable, Yosser Hughes strode across our screens in Alan Bleasedale’s Boys From the Blackstuff. Along with his mates Chrissie and Loggo he was the embodiment of desperation in recession hit Britain. Kids in my primary school would run around the schoolyard and shout “Gizza job!” It was a remarkable instance of a character entering the public consciousness, not just because of his trademark head butts, but because people at the time recognised something in him.
    In the sublime episode Yosser’s Story we watched the complete disintegration of a man in a story that was as blackly funny as it was terrifying. It was as near perfect as TV drama gets, and a prime example of what British TV drama can draw on.
    Our own Pure Mule is back for a one off special, and it’s good - but Irish TV drama as a whole, when measured against the greats of UK and US television has always been found wanting. Admittedly we’ve now discovered a knack for creating drama that entertains. The Clinic was a step forward in this regard, and last year’s Raw was the first example of us doing something fresh and lively and doing it right. But we still have some way to go in regard to creating drama that seeps into the psyche and reverberates on a deeper and more troubling level.
    People have long wondered about our relative shortcomings when it comes to the medium. References to our own literary riches and our inability to draw on that are an irrelevant distraction. TV drama is a different beast entirely. One that requires a heritage and legacy of its own, and on that score we’re little more than babes in comparison to our UK counterparts.
    We’re also hampered by our raw material. Truly great TV drama is about mythologizing. It’s about drawing from the cultural storehouse of history, memory, and self perception. You could argue that our own memory as a nation isn’t that long. Our heroic tropes are somewhat lacking and outmoded, and tend not to travel too well. Our perception of ourselves as a nation is still informed by our post-colonial past. The only recurring mythic trope we tend to ascribe any sense of the resonance to is that of the Easter Rising, and even that, when examined closely, lacks the complexity, depth and sense of a shared mythos necessary to make drama that taps into a sense of the universal. When the dramatic impetus supplied is merely a matter of sovereignty, and the main characters are one-note ideologues it becomes difficult to elevate them beyond that.
    Look at the Americans whose mixture of pride and anxiety about their own history and culture has been sublimated into masterworks like The Wire, The Sopranos and Battlestar Galactica. Our own recent history as a nation state is less grand, more fretful and insular, and certainly a lot more lacking in confidence.
    Tony Soprano is a perfect dramatic product of such a culture. He’s a mythic figure, a complex colossus, the product of an almost Shakespearean sensibility, and the cultural make up of a country bubbling with competing tensions. Our own country is almost monochrome by comparison, and our dramatic personae are even more lacking.
    Twenty years ago A Very British Coup won the BAFTA for best TV drama series. Our own Ray McAnally delivered a towering performance as Harry Perkins, a gruff no nonsense northern socialist who became Primes Minister. He was drawn from the familiar dramatic type honed by generations of TV writing. It’s almost impossible to imagine a parallel scenario in Irish drama. The problem is that drama is drawn from truth, or at least our perception of it. In political or cultural terms we’ve never had anything like the mythic power of Harry Perkins and his ilk. Our own reality gives us even less to draw from. The crassness and vulgarity of the Haughey story is one example that resists any kind of mythic refashioning. It’s a story of pettiness, venality, and, despite assertions to the contrary, it can’t lay any claims for complexity.
    Perhaps we’re hamstrung by our nature as a small nation. But despite this we should be striving for something more.  Something with a sense of scope, something that starts with the Bog of Allen but that moves out from there. Something with resonance for more than just the inhabitants of a working class housing estate or a small town. Something with a larger ambition and a sense of tragic scale.
    We need the equivalent of a psychological emetic, a purging of the system that allows us to break free from the old tropes verging on cliché and easy stereotypes. TV drama should be something more. It should strive for greater cultural resonance and have greater ambition. It’s easy to be good. It’s not so easy to be great.

My phone rings. I answer it.