Elaine Crowley
She’s enticed new viewers during the crisis, but it’s business as usual for Elaine Crowley as her daytime show provides much-needed laughs. By Niamh Walsh
‘T
HERE’S more to me than the size of my a**e,’ says Elaine Crowley in what is her typical blunt but affectionate manner when I enquire if she is jaded by conversations about her weight.
‘It can be a little bit disheartening. Because there is a lot more t o me than the size of my a**e,’ she says.
And there most certainly is. The undisputed queen of the small screen, Elaine has been keeping the show on the road with her eponymous entertainment show on Virgin Media throughout the Covid-19 crisis.
And while a light entertainment show may not be as vital as bulletins from the coalface, for many the familiarity and normality of the show and the break from a barrage of bad news – with the addition of belly laughs from Elaine and her now remote guests – is very much an essential part of life in lockdown.
Presenter and producer Elaine’s afternoon show is very much a labour of love that has had an enduring romance with viewers.
As a seasoned broadcaster, Elaine has, like all those in the media, adapted to the current times and while she is in studio her panellists join her show from their homes.
‘I’m working as normal, I’m in the office every day Monday to Friday, the rest of the team are working from home. I go in the morning, do hair and make-up, there is only me and a floor manager in there. Then all our dial-ups are done remotely, all our interviews are remote. So it’s literally me and robots.
‘I am adjusted to it now. Basically it’s a panel show and you sit down with all the gang. Now it’s had to morph into something new. So I’ve had to put two interviews into it a day, plus the panel chat, so it’s more like a Saturday night chat show. But we just have to adapt and see how it goes.’
Rather than broadcast from a bedroom or boxroom as many other presenters worldwide have chosen to do, Elaine is happy to work from Virgin Media’s Dublin broadcast centre.
‘I don’t mind going in, it looks better seeing me in studio, it looks better than seeing someone on Zoom from the sitting room. It was fun for the first few weeks but I think that’s worn off now.’
Irreverent, informative, entertaining and engaging, Elaine has adeptly trod a line between providing some much-needed Covid-19 relief while also keeping her viewers informed on the evolving crisis.
It is something of a broadcasting feat to be able to bridge that gap for viewers who are simultaneously eager to escape but also desperate to be updated.
And the Elaine show was in high spirits this week as she hosted an Oscar-nominated director and a nudist in one jam-packed, entertaining hour.
‘I try to have one mental or physical health thing. Then the other thing is anything at all under the sun. Like yesterday I had
Lenny Abrahamson on [to discuss his new 12-part adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People] and then after him I had a nudist talking about being a naturist during lockdown... so that was interesting,’ she says with a laugh.
‘She had special extensions to cover the bits so that she was covered on air, she had long hair over her bits, so trying to get the framing on that for daytime TV was challenging.
‘Then it’s not bad having an Oscar-nominated director on as well. So we’re adapting.’
With the nation mostly confined to home, Elaine has caught the attention of a whole new set of viewers.
‘A lot of people are contacting the show to say they have never seen it before, so that’s nice, to get new viewers. Everyone and his mother are at home so there’s a lot of new people watching.’
Cork native Elaine has been living and working in Dublin for the past two decades and while she puts on her biggest, brightest smile on-air she too is suffering due to separation from her family, in particular her beloved mother who was diagnosed with cancer last year.
So it is testament to her talent, professionalism and her inherent ‘sure, feck it, let’s get on with it’ attitude that Elaine has put her best foot forward and has kept her lively show on the road.
Elaine has said the shock news of her mother Mary’s cancer shattered her heart.
‘It broke my heart into a million pieces when I found out she had cancer – it just brought it all back again. [Elaine’s father died of cancer when she was in her early thirties]. I’m up in Dublin on my own, all my family are in Cork so it was like a real kick in the guts.’
With travel restrictions and cocooning in place, Elaine has not seen mum Mary for three months.
‘I’ve not seen my mother and I miss her. All my family in Cork live relatively near each other. I haven’t seen a brother, a sister, a niece or nephew in three months, not one relative in three months, and I’m very close to them and finding it very hard at the moment. I know it will pass and it’s for a very good reason but I miss my family a lot.
‘She [mum] has cancer but she
‘It’s literally me and robots in work ’ ‘I’ve not seen my mother and I miss her’
is keeping herself busy, it’s trying to keep her out of trouble is the main thing,’ she says.
‘She is on Facebook morning, noon and night. She’s after befriending most of the panel on the show. She’s keeping great but it’s not easy for anyone. She is 80 next year and she misses that she can’t go gallivanting.
‘The second this is over I’ll be down to Cork like a bat out of hell.’
Elaine is living with her boyfriend of three years, Keith, an electrician who is also working at the moment. But as for all couples, lockdown can be testing.
‘He’s at work every day as well so it’s kind of normal as it can be in that we get up and go to work and come home and see each other in the evenings.
‘But looking at the same head every day can be challenging so any couple that can come through this... yes, it’s challenging.’
While she is deeply, truly mad about her boy she gasps, ‘Jesus, no’ when I raise the question of marriage.
In 2016 Elaine appeared as a contestant on a celebrity version of Operation Transformation, when she lost weight. She has also spoken about a hormone imbalance that left her battling to keep her weight down.
Elaine puts her previous inability to maintain a regular weight down to the fact that she experienced an early perimenopause and also suffered from polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).
‘I got my hormones fixed, that was it. It’s been a couple of years. My hormones had gone a bit wonky because I went into perimenopause quite young and I had PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) as well.
‘I was piling on weight and I couldn’t understand why. I was always off on these boot camps and health retreats. So I got my hormone levels fixed and I feel a million times better.’
Now 42, Elaine says she wishes she had learned of the problem sooner. ‘I had no idea I had PCOS and I can’t believe it’s taken until my forties to get it sorted.
‘If I had known it earlier, in my
‘It’s a good time to see what we want out of life’
teenage years, I’d say I wouldn’t have had a lot of the problems that manifested but you can’t be p **** d off about that’, she told the
RTE Guide recently.
‘I’ll never be Twiggy; I’ll always have some junk in the trunk.’
But these days she has never looked better and seems energised by working under difficult conditions to get her live show on the air. Elaine says the recent changes in her show, which have seen her conduct more interviews, has given her an invigorated sense of career purpose.
‘Doing what I have been doing the last month and interviewing more and more people, albeit on Skype, I actually would love to do more of that, to devote time to interviews. People have some great stories to tell. To get more in-depth, some people’s lives are fascinating, so that is something I would like to explore more.’
She maintains that taking the enforced steps back in the current crisis will lead to giant leaps forward.
‘I think a lot of people are taking this time to take a step back and a time out and see what we all want from life. A lot of us have just been hamsters on a wheel and go to work, come home, do what you do at weekends, but this time has given me time to think of what I’ve done and achieved and what I want to do and want out of life. And there is so much more out there.’
But for now, ‘out there’ is her home town of Cork and her family who are her whole world. ‘Your loved ones and family are the most important things in the world – feck career, feck money, feck things, the most important thing in the world is people and keeping them safe.’
Elaine is on Virgin Media One weekdays at 3pm