The Dirt on Dirty John
We hear he’s erce dirty? But is he, really?
All week the talk was of Dirty John: in the o ce, along the draughty corridors, inside the echoing cubicles of the gents (OK maybe I imagined the last). It was Dirty John this and Dirty John that and Dirty John the other. “Alright! Alright!” I cried, what’s the story with this Dirty John?’ By the by I heard that it was a bingeing new Net ix show based on a true- crime podcast which in turn was inspired by a series of LA Times articles all about a philandering con man called ‘Dirty’ John Meehan and his dirty ways.
I knew a Dirty John once. Filthy he was, with his matted sheep hair and baggy trousers, dirt everywhere, especially under his talon-like nails and in his twitchy eyes. Loaded too, or so they said: muck and brass and all that. You couldn’t believe the half of it, just as you couldn’t believe that they would make a TV show about our DJ as we never knew him. But it does get you thinking that there might be legs in this yarn. After all we all know a Dirty John, don’t we?
So what about Dirty John: The Irish Version? Or Durty John as it would probably be known: or maybe Mucky Mick or Sweaty Seamus? This edgy mini-series would chronicle the cautionary tale of a lad weaned by swine (the four-legged variety), educated by nature and who hasn’t seen the business end of a bar of soap since God-knows-when. Every week (unless we’re bingeing) our intrepid but unclean hero gets into a scrape with some zealous scrubber intent on cleaning up his act but inevitably failing. If, as some have it, cleanliness is next to godliness, then Mucky Mick is cursed to eternal damnation and a life-time of dirt. It could run forever.
Anyway I got to watch the real Dirty John last week. Seems I got it all wrong. Clean as a whistle he was, except for his murderous mind and those dirty looks. In the o ce a straw poll on its merits or otherwise proved inconclusive. Reviews ranged from ‘not as good as the podcast’ to ‘I love Eric Bana’ (who plays DJ) to ‘ erce durty!’ to ‘slow as molasses’ and so on. Sometimes the best thing about a show can be its title. It can also be the most misleading. Like what’s with this Late Late Show ( jeez it’s only half nine on a Friday night, stop shovelling me o to bed) or the News (is it? really?) and as for I Love Dick, well maybe you should tune in.
(Donal O’Donoghue)
Dirty John is now streaming on Net ix