Murphy’s low ... a quiz show where Marian is Mary Mac!
PLAY IT BY YEAR SATURDAY, RTÉ1, 8.35PM
HEAR me out on this one. I have a theory that only a relatively small number of people in the country actually know who Mike Murphy is.
It sounds unlikely, granted, but it makes perfect sense when all the relevant factors are taken into account. Look, it boils down to two simple points: (a) nobody under 30 has even heard of him and (b) anyone older than me has forgotten him because they’re at an age when their memory starts playing tricks on them.
Yet, as those of us who find ourselves somewhere between (a) and (b) are keenly aware, Mike was on the telly practically 24/7 at one point.
My own memories of him date back to the Candid Camera-style pranks he used to do on The Live Mike. The one where he dressed up as a French rugby fan to ambush an unsuspecting Gay Byrne is well worth tracking down on YouTube. His CV still looks as if it is, well, all over the shop. Besides making some very good travel documentaries, he hosted Winning Streak and did the commentary on RTÉ’s Eurovision coverage for many years.
Meanwhile, Mike also had a successful career on the wireless. Probably his best trick was managing to reinvent himself as a sort of poor man’s Melvyn Bragg when he was presenting The Arts Show.
Even when he was working on programmes that were clearly beneath his abilities, though, Mike wasn’t one to let it show.
He was always cheerful and likeable, as well as giving the impression of not taking himself too seriously.
Best of all, he quit while he was ahead and went off to make a shedload of money in the property game. He’s been back on the air intermittently in recent times, although I have no idea what possessed him to get involved as the master of ceremonies on Play It By Year.
Granted, I can see the appeal of a show like this from the perspective of Montrose executives. It is essentially a quiz version of Reeling In The Years and, as such, the production costs probably come to a grand total of tuppence ha’penny per episode.
First impressions weren’t great. We are told the questions relate to events from the Eighties, Nineties, Noughties and the current decade, which is fair enough. Except it doesn’t explain why the show’s theme tune is The Boys Are Back In Town, the Thin Lizzy hit from, er, 1976.
The format consists of three teams – each with three members – competing against each other on a garish set with the sort of flashing lights likely to induce an epileptic fit or, at the very least, a splitting headache. It was the third round before anyone got a question right and, even then, Mike had to practically give them the answer.
To be honest, I’m finding it hard to pick out my favourite bits. I was particularly taken by the contestant who mistook a TV clip of Mary McAleese for Marian Finucane, even though the woman onscreen could clearly be heard speaking in a broad Northern accent.
But there were also several highlights in the quickfire round. One team captain seemed to think Bono was born in 1976, which would have made him all of nine years old when he delivered that memorable performance at Live Aid.
Another question involved naming the country in which Casablanca and Marrakech can be found.
By way of an answer, one of the contestants came up with South America. Genuinely, I’m not making any of this up.
Probably the most amusing thing about Play It By Year, though, is the way it shamelessly cannibalises RTÉ quiz shows of yesteryear. For one of the rounds, the teams had to answer questions from old broadcasts of Cross Country Quiz, Know Your Sport and Mike’s very own Murphy’s Micro Quiz-M.
Looking back at the Eighties footage of himself, Mike tried to feign embarrassment. ‘It is mortifying,’ he said. ‘If you were me, you’d be mortified.’
Frankly, he should be more mortified at ending up on dross like this at this stage in his life.