Now Bannon’s back, we can show Covid the door
Room To Improve RTÉ One, Sunday
Reacher
Prime Video, streaming
Vincent Hanley: Sex, Lies And Videotapes RTÉ One, Monday Chloe
BBC1, Sunday/Monday
For two long years, Dermot Bannon never got the chance to breathe the word ‘atrium’. While there was a void in our lives, Dermot had to sit on his hands, unable to include one in a home makeover. Nary a bifold door opened; instead, every one of them was slammed shut in his face.
Finally, on Sunday, we got the surest sign yet that we have well and truly entered the post-pandemic stage of the Covid crisis, because Bannon and Room To Improve were back.
And, yes, we lapped it up, with more than 550,000 tuning in as it aired, or later on catch-up, beating Dancing With The Stars, The Tommy Tiernan Show, and The Late Late Show to the viewership tape.
Episodes of Room To Improve fall into two categories – heart-warming and adversarial, the latter usually when passive-aggressive clients seem intent on one thing only, which is making a piñata of poor old Dermot when all he wants to do is share his expertise and give them the amazing home they never knew they needed.
What we never have seen before is a project come in under budget, at least not in my memory, but that’s what he achieved on the first show of the new series. The clients, Lisa and Marc Daly, have three sons, one of whom, Liam, is autistic. They were selling their old house and building a new one from scratch in the adjacent garden, and prime among their needs was a sensory room for Liam to retreat to when he became overwhelmed.
Far from being just a makeover show, the episode gave a very real and honest insight into the lives of full-time carers, and the 24-hour nature of the task they face. This became even more acute when the project that began three years ago was stalled by multiple lockdowns that saw construction paused. The family had to move to a loaned house in Co. Louth, and Lisa had to do the school run to Dublin, leaving home every morning at 6.30. It was exhausting looking at it, never mind living with it, and I seldom have rooted so earnestly for anyone to get their dream home.
And, of course, they did, because whether you like Dermot’s style or not (and I do), he never disappoints. All the haggling over the little details proves worth it in the end and while there always is a row over the kitchen, and corners to be cut like using cheaper sanitary ware, everything finally comes together. The lasting image from the show was Liam in his room, calm and content with his feet pressed against a vibrating light tower, and all thanks to a gifted architect and determined parents whose main aim was to do their best for him and his brothers.
I’ve never really understood binge-watching, unless it was from necessity. I was on holiday in Tunisia years ago and the weather was desperate on one of the days, so I watched 11 hours of Mad Men on my laptop, but beyond that, I’m not a fan. That’s why I’m still surprised that over the course of four days this week, I rattled through all eight episodes of Reacher, the Prime Video adaptation of Lee Child’s book. Tom Cruise played him in two movies, which was widely derided at the time, because in the books, Reacher is six feet five, and Cruise, well, Cruise isn’t. No such mistake in the casting here, with former male model Alan Ritchson playing the ex-army officer turned drifter solving unspeakable crimes.
I won’t bore you with the plot, but it was nice for once to see a little old-fashioned cartoon violence, some of it darkly humorous – a police chief crucified naked on his living room wall, a couple of hitmen duly despatched themselves, with their limbs broken post-mortem to make sure they fit in the boot of a car. If that doesn’t sound like your thing, then Reacher is not for you, but I liked the atmosphere of corrupt small-town America and the colourful rogues it produces, and the eventual righting of wrongs by an incorruptible stranger who arrived and left like an avenging angel.
The saddest programme of the week was RTÉ’s documentary about Vincent Hanley, made by his friend Bill Hughes. Fab Vinnie was a superstar when I was young, first on the radio and then when he presented MT-USA from the States, offering a three-hour escape every Sunday afternoon from the relentless boredom of the 1980s.
His move to New York though, was about more than his career. In the Ireland of the time, his homosexuality left him and every gay man liable to criminal prosecution, and his release from that suffocating world of secrets saw him blossom in the States. Sadly, he contracted Aids, the first high-profile Irish person to do so, and while it no doubt was little consolation to his family and friends, his death started a national conversation that was a baby step on the way to decriminalisation and equality.
Finally, the BBC’s excellent psychological drama Chloe came to an end, with the revelation we all suspected. Spoiler alert but yes, Becky too was an avenging angel, out to find out if her friend Chloe really did take her own life or was murdered by her controlling husband Elliot. That was the piece of the jigsaw we never quite got to discover, but over the course of six episodes, Erin Doherty’s brilliant central performance held me rapt, and her bittersweet glimpse of redemption at the end made the occasional frustration along the way more than worth it. A bit like dealing with Dermot Bannon doing up your house.
Room To Improve
The haggling over small details is worth it in the end
Vincent Hanley: Sex, Lies And Videotapes Vinnie’s tragic death started a national conversation
Reacher
Nice for once to see a bit of old-fashioned cartoon violence