Second trip to the land that humour forgot is no joke, guv
IMENTIONED in passing last week my recent horrific domestic experience when I accidentally turned on The Saturday Night Show. Given that I managed to switch channels again within a nanosecond, no lasting harm was done.
To her credit, my l ady wife maintained a diplomatic silence as this awful tableau unfolded in our sitting room – but let’s not fool ourselves here, we all know of marriages which have ended over less.
Suffice to say, I resolved never to let it happen again; yet like some r ecidivist shoplifter f i nding himself in front of the beak for the umpteenth time, here I am just seven days later with another tale of woe. However, m’lud, there are mitigating circumstances on this occasion and at least the missus was safely tucked up in bed this time.
It happened like this. On Sunday evening, I watched the last in the series of The Meaning Of Life, in which Gay Byrne interviewed
THE SATURDAY NIGHT SHOW SATURDAY, SATURDAY, RTÉ1, RTÉ1, 9.50PM 9.50PM
rockabilly singer Imelda May. It was a pleasantly diverting halfhour, with Imelda coming across as warm, witty and self-effacing.
Shortly after the The Week In Politics began, I appear to have slipped into some sort of mysterious coma. By the time I rejoined the land of the living, the latenight news was over and, a little over 24 hours after it first aired, the opening titles of The Saturday Night Show were rolling once more for the repeat screening.
Following my lapse into unconsciousness, I can only assume I was too groggy and disorientated to grab the remote control in time. Yet once presenter Brendan O’Connor went into his introductory spiel, there was something almost compelling about the whole thing – although not, of course, in a good way.
You’ve no doubt seen it yourself at some point, whether by accident – or less likely, I’d imagine – design. Though Brendan has finally managed to extricate himself from the three-piece suits that gave him the appearance of a struggling provincial solicitor, little else has changed.
As the great man appears, the studio audience erupts in applause and whoops. This is the sort of reaction David Bowie would be only too happy to get if he brought Ziggy Stardust out of retirement for one last tour. I don’t know what they’re giving the audience beforehand but, whatever it is, make mine a large one.
And then – week after week – comes arguably one of the most cringe-inducing interludes in the entire history of light entertainment. This is the bit where the burning Brendan, looking for all the world like a latter-day Herman Munster, reels off half a dozen or so ‘gags’ from what I can only assume to be an autocue.
His awkward delivery is bad enough, but the alleged jokes are so jaw-droppingly unfunny as to beggar belief. If you didn’t know otherwise, you would be excused for thinking it was some kind of a lame parody.
His opening gambit last weekend involved the Taoiseach and
Tánaiste still being at odds over same- sex marriage. ‘Apparently Enda is holding out to have the reception in Castlebar,’ went the punchline. Cue uproarious laughter from the delirious audience.
Almost inevitably, there was more in the same vein. ‘Of course, the thing is, as we all know, we already have same- sex marriage in this country’, grinned Brendan, warning to his theme. ‘That’s where you get married and have the same sex once a month, if you’re lucky.’ Boom, boom.
Reports that the St John Ambulance had to be called for a bloke in Row F whose sides had split remain unconfirmed at the time of writing.
You can probably guess the payoff to the quip about Kian Egan signing up for I’m A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! and being asked ‘how he felt about being in the wilderness with a bunch of has-beens’. Clue: the answer involved Westlife.
‘That was mean, I know, wasn’t it?’ smirked Brendan. ‘That wasn’t nice.’
Worse than that, it wasn’t funny.