OUR VERDICT ON THE GAME
A beautiful piece of work worthy of repeat viewing
The first episode of any new comedy series is problematic. There’s so much scene-setting to be done, the writers often forget to include any laughs at all, and the result is that they lose half the audience before the show settles into anything resembling a stride. No such worries in Hang Ups, which sprang fully formed from the traps. To be fair, that might be because it is based on, though not a remake of, Lisa Kudrow’s US series, Web
Therapy. The premise is joyously simple – a psychiatrist counsels his patients via Skype, and that allows for a lot of straight-to-camera acting. It also allows for a lot of terrific cameos from famous faces who never need to be in the same studio together, and there’s a stellar line-up on show here.
Stephen Mangan plays the therapist, Richard Pitt, and he has more than a few hang ups of his own, to the point where he also is in counselling with the glorious Richard E Grant. Pitt has issues with his father (the ever imperious Charles Dance) and Grant’s solution for when Pitt is being threatened on camera by his dad is a simple one – ‘have your left hand on the off button, and the other hand on your genitals, and as soon as you feel that you’re being threatened either way, squeeze one or switch off the other.’
To add to his problems, Pitt’s wife Karen, played by Katherine Parkinson, is a high-flyOver ing businesswoman who schedules their sexual encounters in much the same way as she schedules foreign trips. With five minutes to spare before flying to Zurich, she performs what I believe I’m obliged to refer to as ‘a sex act’ on him, but with such clock-watching urgency he is compelled to tell her: ‘Steady – it’s not Yahtzee.’
Add in a house full of teenagers, the search for a missing charger and a host of other worries and what you have is a man with more problems than any of his clients. He also has a secret debt and is being threatened by a loan shark. The best scene saw Pitt on Skype to the thug, convincing him that he could absolve some of the debt by providing free counselling.
The star turn was Sarah Hadland. Her foul-mouthed rant about cats was dazzling. David Tennant plays one of the patients in the next episode, and I can’t wait.
Hang Ups is the most assured comedy debut in years and it passed the most important test of all – I laughed out loud, a lot.
on RTÉ, the second episode of the compelling documentary
The Game reminded me of the nostalgic power of radio commentary on hurling matches. Michael O’Hehir was the single most recognisable voice of my childhood, the one we listened to on a transistor radio between swimming and eating tomato sandwiches on Brittas Bay. The segment on him was magical, a reminder that the most vivid pictures of any sporting event are painted in words, not images. Nowadays, only Michael Corcoran on rugby comes close.
We have been blessed in recent weeks by some of the most extraordinary hurling this country has ever seen in two clashes between Galway and Clare. For excitement, no other sport matches it – the speed, agility and skill on display almost defy physics. The Game, told in chapters, reverentially but not sentimentally, reveals the deep connection between hurling and the national psyche. It is a beautiful piece of work that deserves repeated viewing. The documentary film John
Hume In America was both reverential and sentimental, and suffered because of it. It was my second time seeing it, as it had a cinema release last year.
Clearly made for a primarily foreign audience, it told the story of Hume’s ambitious plan to involve the United States in the peace process, bringing pressure to bear on the British government to sort the Troubles out. Hume engaged the so-called four horsemen – Speaker Tip O’Neill, Senators Ted Kennedy and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and New York governor Hugh Carey – to lead the charge, and eventually achieved the result he desired. He paid a high price, though. In bringing the fringe players into the mainstream, he made his own SDLP party redundant.
Much of what happened was unsubtly hammered home – ‘John was Ireland’s Martin Luther King,’ said Bill Clinton – not least with an overworked score by Riverdance’s Bill Whelan, and narration by Liam Neeson that out-Aslaned Aslan.
Hume’s place in the island’s history is assured, and there was no need for a hagiography when a simple tribute would have sufficed.
Hang Ups This was the most assured comedy debut in years