Memory Lane – for those in the know
CITIZEN LANE RTÉ ONE, TONIGHT, 9.35
TO MANY Dubs, the Hugh Lane Gallery is so-called because they think it’s located on, well, Hugh Lane. Of course, technically speaking, it’s on Parnell Square.
The fact that so many of us who live in the city don’t know the back-story behind the real Hugh Lane is real shame, but tonight’s Citizen
Lane (RTÉ One, 9.35pm) will surely change some of the misconceptions around the famous art dealer and philanthropist – or at least inform people that he was a real person and not just a street name to be used when giving directions to baffled tourists.
Combining the pretty damn impressive artistic chops of Thaddeus O’Sullivan, Mark O’Halloran and Tom Vaughan Lawlor,
Citizen Lane is a docudrama about Lane, who was born in Cork in 1875 and founded the Dublin Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in 1905 – the world’s first modern art gallery.
His decision to bequeath his collection of modern masterpieces to the people of Ireland led to an unholy diplomatic row between Dublin and London.
A man who resides in more obscurity than he deserves, this is undoubtedly the stand out domestic programme of the week... There is a real sense that Gogglebox (Virgin Media 1) has had its time. A genuinely innovative format which saw us watching people watching television, it could have been a massive flop, but the strength of the couch potatoes on the British show has since propelled many of them to have their own career on television.
Tonight sees the return of the fourth season on VM1 (the channel formerly known as TV3) and introduces a new couple, Deirdre Murphy and her daughter Áine Flynn, from Dublin...
What’s in a gag? We now live in an era when comedians are prosecuted for hate crimes for making jokes (you may or may not appreciate Count Dankula’s humour, but the fact that he has been made a criminal in his native Scotland is genuinely chilling) and modern comedy shows now seem to be filled with people looking to take offence.
Tonight sees the brilliant 2016 documentary The Last
Laugh (Sky Arts, 10pm), which looks at the biggest comedy taboo of them all – the Holocaust.
Whenever someone says that there are things you shouldn’t laugh about, the Holocaust is top of the list.
But as we see in this programme, history’s greatest atrocity has long been a source of humour and greats like Mel Brooks talk about the fact that “comics are the conscience of the people and they’re allowed a large berth in any direction, even if it’s in bad taste”.
Ah sure what would he know?