Engagingly, the people least likely to exaggerate its success or significance are those most directly involved. "We're not going to change the world with this show," says Gary Flood, script editor/writer/performer. "What it is, is half an hour of good comedy for people sitting at home watching TV . . . "
"We'll have a go because of what people do rather than who they are. We're not keen on personal insults. . . There are far more creative ways of getting inside someone's skin than calling someone a fat bollocks. I think Irish viewers prefer more of a slaggin' approach."
So does the show's veteran producer, John Keogh (late of Hall's Pictorial Weekly, The Live Mike, Nighthawks): "We'll satirise but not personalise." So last week, the Nevin case was out of bounds, partly it seems, because they were advised that there might be an appeal of some kind, but mostly because of what Keogh describes as "the other side of that story - which is Tom Nevin's family".
He draws a clear distinction between his approach and that of Scrap Saturday. "I think we're slightly more issue-driven than personality-driven. We'll leave the big names out if there's nothing for them to do. We're not hammering on their personalities." In fact, he reckons that comedy can be over-rated from that point of view. "I'd just like to think that it might, in a small way, make politicians think themselves."
So Charlie McCreevy is a regular denizen of the "Dail bar", looking ahead to a time when the refugees turned tax-payers will be "nice little earners" and he can turn the flotels into "floatin' creches". Mary O'Rourke is another, bullying Dublin Bus into calling a strike for Wednesday because she can get to the hairdresser faster. Bertie and Celia have their own showhouse kitchen and livingroom - kept alive more, it has to be said, by the visual gag than the script.
But Keogh has plenty of other types in his sights. He sees little difference now between the people who were satirised by Frank Hall and today's fodder. "More people are urbanised now, but the general values and views haven't changed by a huge amount. There's the same deference to authority. People are still mightily impressed by it. We like the idea and the image of Irishness but we also like to think we're international and that's not just since Riverdance . . . an O Riada when Mise Eire came out and the shiny eyes of the audiences at the notion of getting away from the melodeons and accordions and actually having an orchestra. Riverdance is just the same - an idealised version of what Irish music, dancing and people are . . . Every country will try and portray a modern and vibrant side to others."
So far, so good. But where Keogh draws the line is when this modern and vibrant side is represented for us by "this whole affluent, vulgar, pop society which we've only managed to scratch at in Bull Island . . . the transparent, crass, financial vulgarity of it all. So much of the pop business is manufactured - a way for a small number of people to control the money market. There's a lot of money going around and very little cop behind it. We're supposed to feel privileged now to be able to watch Chris Evans at play in Dublin. I've no difficulty really with the pop society but it's when these people lose sight of what they actually are - whether it's pop musicians or models or whatever - and start preaching that it gets annoying. And there's a lot of preaching coming now from a wide swathe of the affluent society. What bothers me is, if over a period of time, this goes unchallenged . . . "
Keogh and his team have begun to scratch. We had "Dessie O'Malley" on his pulpit, preaching about the barristers in the "land of tribunals - having a grand day, or a two grand day, or even a three grand day . . . Wealthy wigged wonders . . . Leeches of the Law Library". We had the teachers - "God I hate this job . . . And the hours we're expected to work. Home at half past three and there's absolutely nothing on the telly." The AIB directors, pocketing the dosh - "Five go mad in a bank." The New Pretenders (Denis O'Brien, Margaret Heffernan, Harry Crosbie) - "Ordinary folk living ordinary lives. The only difference is they've got zillions of pounds. And you don't." (Bus) Strike City - "Let car-driving management work it out with car-driving union officials on your behalf."
In fact, far from being hung up on the stock politicians, Keogh's strategy is to rely less and less on them for ammunition and to develop more of the show's own caricatures from non-political Irish characters.
There was a distinctly giddy, end-of-term feeling about proceedings this week. Elva Crowley showed a bit of black bra strap in her Power City guise while she and Michael Sheridan urged us to "check out dese am-ayzing offers from Baby City . . . " The plan is for them all to return in the autumn. Meanwhile, given the insecure nature of a career in comedy or writing of any kind, it will be back to the land of the bland and the mundane for most of them. Catherine Maher returns to her copywriting company, "The Write Stuff". Writer, Richard Carroll (CV includes community radio, horses, a couple of unpublished plays) has no plans. Writer, Michelle Costello (a.k.a. Mildred Fox and Margaret Heffernan) formerly of the Gaiety School and Focus theatre, wants some stage work. Elva Crowley aims to do more voiceovers if she can get them, plus some song-writing and to produce a baby in about four-and-a-half months time. Writer Pearse Lehane will continue to direct his documentary about the making of all 19 Beckett plays into films. Some of the luckier ones have hit on a lucrative side-line in after-dinner speaking; O'Callaghan does one a week.
Alan Shortt - who once told a woman looking for a car loan that she could hardly afford a bicycle - may be one of the happiest men alive: "If I'd asked myself two years ago, would I be able to write something, perform it and have it screened on mainstream television, well, I wouldn't even have dreamt it. But I believe in miracles now . . . Now I'd say, yes, there is a God. That you can change from `Will that be cash or lodge?' and `I know it's your money but how do we know you are who you say you are?' to this . . . ?"
A happy comedian? In Ireland? Ah, RTE - dis mahdness must end seoon.