TV & Radio

The 2 Johnnies resume business as if nothing ever happened

Radio review: Back on 2FM after a short ban, the pair seem unchanged by the recent controversy

The 2 Johnnies, forgiven by RTÉ. Photograph: Peter Houlihan / PH Photography

Mick Heaney's face
Mick Heaney
Mon Mar 14 2022 - 19:20

They’re only back on the radio a couple of minutes, and already it’s clear that the 2 Johnnies are unchanged by the recent controversy. Returning to 2FM three weeks being taken off air for posting sexist material on social media, the Tipperary double act of Johnny “B” O’Brien and Johnny “Smacks” McMahon make no further apology for their behaviour.

“We’re 100 per cent grass fed, farm to fork, Donegal to Cork, thoroughbred, muck savage, square bale stacking, handbrake turn pulling, large bottle, small glass, saying hello to the magpie, dinner at one o’clock, and a one-finger salute to anyone you might pass on the road,” the duo recite, trading lines with each other.

Lest anyone is under the misapprehension that the 2 Johnnies are embarrassed about their rural roots, the record is set straight by the giddily defiant catalogue of rural stereotypes with which the podcast stars open their second crack at their 2FM show, Drive It.

As for any contrition for the ill-judged video that landed them in trouble to begin with, their triumphantly-delivered punchline seems to make their feelings clear: “What’s the craic, it’s good to be here, and it’s great to be back.”

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Were it not delivered in their customary good-natured tone, one might think this a one-fingered salute to anyone who feels the 2 Johnnies got off lightly. (The pair previously apologised for the video, featuring offensive bumper sticker slogan, explaining it was posted in error with its condemnatory context edited out.)

Either way, the 2 Johnnies resume business as if nothing ever happened.

More pertinently for Montrose bosses looking to tap into the pair’s online fanbase, their presenting style remains the same. Though the show’s format is ostensibly based around a few items, such as the “parish quiz” and the self-explanatory “not major news” slot, the banter between O’Brien and McMahon is the main selling point.

They swap anecdotes from their life in Cahir and cheekily chat with guests, unabashedly funnelling it all through the prism of their country-bucko persona.  Too often, this shtick takes a predictable course, with de rigueur references to chicken rolls and the Sunday Game: if use of the word “craic” was banned, they’d lose a substantial chunk of material.

Sometimes, however, the approach is surprisingly effective, as when they talk to farmer Ruth Mulligan about lambing season. This might seem like peak “culchie”, as they joke themselves, but it’s a glimpse into a world rarely heard about on radio, much less on a youth-oriented music station.

Ruth talks about fostering lambs from multiple births to other sheep: you learn something new every day. Meanwhile, the hosts are suitably irreverent, asking their guest whether she’s “in the AI camp or the ram camp” when it comes to managing her flock. (For the benefit of any cosseted urbanites, the “I” in this case doesn’t stand for “intelligence”.)

The problem is that it’s the only such item. Otherwise, the material is flimsy, padded out by a pumping soundtrack of hits from the 1990s and 2000s. Of course, most daytime music radio follows a similar template of light patter interspersing big hits: the 2 Johnnies weren’t recruited for their current affairs nous.

As the saying goes, it’s not the steak, it’s the sizzle. O’Brien and McMahon have a palpable chemistry, honed by podcasts and live performances, and are a lively presence. They form an easy rapport with their public, in the form of quiz contestants: when they congratulate a Donegal woman on her “powerful accent” it sounds utterly natural, rather than patronising.

But this mightn’t be enough for them to be the game-changing presenters that a floundering 2FM requires. They have a natural amiability and a neat line in witty wisecracks: “You nearly have to sell a kidney to get a drop of diesel,” is Johnny B’s verdict on rising fuel costs. But they’re not quite as funny as they think, while the nudge-nudge-wink-wink urges that landed them in hot water are still there, as evidenced by their knowing remarks about a vacuum cleaner having “maximum suction”.

What works in the individualistic, closed content world of podcasting doesn’t have quite the same impact in the intrinsically more inclusive yet more competitive realm of publicly-funded radio, particularly stretched over three hours every day.

The 2 Johnnies’ sins, more venial than mortal, have been forgiven by their new employers. But if the pair’s singular shtick wears thin on the airwaves, 2FM may yet be sorry.