BACKING into a little sidestreet in Kilbarrack, the white, double decker wedding bud signalled that the big commitment had almost arrived. As this was Commitments territory, you expected the bus to reverse over the groom's prize motorbike or at least dint the bride's Bentley. But, with marriage, there's always enough symbolism on show without adding Roddy Doyle farce.
Two Dubs, Mario and Grainne, were about to get hitched in this first of four fly on the altar documentaries under the curiously hippy speak title of Hallelujah, Love And Stuff. (The makers might have gone the whole hog and called it Hallelujah. Love And Stuff Man.) The cameras had trailed the pair through four months of arrangements, fittings, pre nuptial philosophy and nest flitting family discussions. Still, after five years, two break ups and one baby, Mario and Grainne were going traditional.
Very traditional, in fact. "I'm the boss," said Grainne. This was true. "I never said you weren't," agreed Mario, showing a firm grasp of post nuptial detente as his single days petered out. Our introduction to the compliant groom showed him cleaning a bath. Domesticity, like prison, is particularly cruel on those who resist. You sensed that Mario knew this. Get the little commitments right and the big one should follow. The bath was shining.
Mind you, Grainne was committed too - committed to wifely dominance - so the arrangement has every chance, provided Mario is allowed the occasional safety valve: drink, football, the horses, karaoke - that sort of stuff - to go with the love. "Anything that was done was my choice," said Grainne, suggesting that her blueprint for success had forced Mario "to grow up".
The couple were living together before the wedding. "Ah, yeah, Grainne . . . she's a character to live with. She can be funny one day and serious the next. It's eh, it's . . . an experience," Mario said, the generality of his summarising word showing mature, diplomatic domesticity to match his bath cleaning skills. You had to like Mario. Told he was being manipulated, he consented in principle, bending where the less astute might break.
Grainne's mother was not happy about what she saw as the back to front nature of the relationship. Having the baby first, living together second and getting married third had turned what she saw as the Catholic order of things on its head. Still, she grinned and bore it and was "very proud of her beautiful daughter" on the day of the wedding. Right too weddings without happy, sentimental tears are not consummated at all.
But, before the big day, there were the stag and hen nights - hellish renunciations of fun, which probably hadn't been all that enjoyable for a long time anyway. There were pubs and nightclubs and drink and dancing and DJs and karaoke, which was bad, but not really bad enough to be great.
At the altar, the cameras zoomed in on the rings, the exchange of vows and the kiss. The guests applauded the kiss and then it was off to Portmarnock for the reception. The newlyweds, cradling their infant son, Ciaran, danced to a slow number by the wedding band. Mario was wearing his Mr Happy socks and his mother was very happy it had all gone so well. The documentary, though similar programmes have almost become cliche's on British television, had too.
Like wedding day photographs, this ultimate wedding video was slightly soft focus but that's fine. Given Grainne's consent, anniversary follow ups could easily turn it into solid social documentary as the shine of wedded bliss attempts to equal the hard won shine Mario got on the bath.
FOR a man claiming to be embarrassed by the shine of pop stardom, Sting had no problems living the cliche of the rock star with the huge country mansion. The South Bank Show found the 44 year old former schoolteacher in his Jacobean pile in Wiltshire. Twelve years after The Police broke up, Sting was recording his sixth solo album, a bluesy, jazzy effort of the kind that musicians make for each other.
Against a Sothebyesque backdrop of antique globes, criminally expensive chess sets and carved fireplaces, Sting was a kind of cerebral country squire in dungarees. This mix of hippy and aristocratic lifestyles always seems to negate itself; neither gets sufficient space to breathe (or breed). The clash seems to be just too great - Californian cool surrounded by British imperial imagery.
Anyway, political and aesthetic considerations aside, Sting is on the pig's back. He says he has led "a quite wild and profligate life but balanced by thought and discipline". So, perhaps he can carry off the imperial hippy paradox - thoughtful hippy, wild imperialist or vice versa, depending upon your perspective on these matters. "They (The Police) were so sure of themselves," said Bob Geldof.
Now that's stuff. When Bob Geldof asserts that people were "so sure of themselves", you know you're dealing with egos more substantial than the Colgate ring of confidence. "I have grown out of pop music," said Sting. "I don't landmark my own life with pop songs anymore. Now I do it with my own work." With a cat on his knee as he pondered his next chess move (a cool, dismissive pawn takes bishop) Sting used proper South Bank Show - words such as "Proust" and "post modern". Even Melvyn Bragg knew then that he was not in the presence of Showaddawaddy. Self consciously knowing giggles and nods were exchanged.
To be fair, it was hard not to think that in spite of the risk of pretension and preciousness, Sting was doing fine. Then we saw him in a pair of leather trousers and really, this was pushing his luck too far. We had absorbed his yoga and his justification ("Look, I didn't do it for my own career") for becoming involved in saving some of the Amazon, was convincing. But the leather trousers were inexcusable.
And the music? Well, it was, I'm sure, technically first class. But it seemed desperately self conscious and self referential. It was, in that sense (in the way that so much modern writing is tore other writers rather than readers) music for musicians. "He still twats on about Tantric sex. But now he sees the joke, y'know," concluded Geldof. Well, maybe he does, because those leather trousers must be a punchline to something very strange indeed.
SHAKING OFF the boring, lovable rogue Lovejoy character, Ian McShane returned to prime time BBC drama as the eponymous Madson, a professional gambler wrongly convicted of murdering his wife. Eight years into his life sentence, John Madson gets his conviction quashed and is released, having picked up a law degree in prison. Now he wants to work as a lawyer and he's bought a pair of ridiculous spectacles to show he means business.
Meanwhile, the bent coppers who put Madson away are on his case again. We know this because the more senior bent copper tells oar hero: "You're a scumbag and I'm on your case. Still, Madson has lovable low life contacts who work in the motor trade, but will always do a spot of breaking and entering in a good cause. Mad son's good cause is to ensure he can get a witness to testify in a case that's beginning to fall apart for a snobby legal firm which he's badgering for a job.
And that's the most of it. As a glossy star vehicle, it's pacey, and McShane, in enough make up and mascara to rival Dusty Springfield, is competent throughout. However, producer Colin Shindler's claim that Madson embodies "a passionate desire to say something about how the law treats people" is laughably ambitious. It's just too glossy, entertainment driven and - when all is said - too safe and reverential to approach the truth.
As in This Life, there are feather duster side swipes about the huxterism, commodification, nepotism and unfairness of the law. But these are cosmetic attacks and invariably some paternalistic, "crusty but honourable" old codger is introduced to save the day. Madson is not going to cause any shivers among the British legal establishment - that doesn't mean you can't enjoy it, it just means you shouldn't take it too seriously.
IN a quiet way, the programme of the week was Cursai Reatha. It focused on suicide among young people and with a few, simple location shots interspersing interviews with bereaved parents, it made palpable a truly dreadful sense of loss. There were some bar charts showing the steep rise in suicide among young people and there were snippets from professionals who deal with the problem. But it was the interviews with the parents which mattered.
The only element of the programme to rival these were scenes from the 1980 All Ireland minor hurling semi final between Galway and Wexford. As ever, Micheal O Muircheartaigh's nasal exuberance evoked the lost Ireland of De Valera sturdy youths in athletic pursuits. After all, inter county minor hurling is as wholesome as it gets. But Galway's left full forward went on to take his own life. Studying medicine in Galway, he seemed to have a lot going for him, when, in 1982, he flipped and drank poison.
In Belfast, a teenager who took to sniffing glue lost his ambition to become an actor, gave up and finally killed himself. We saw his mother visiting his grave. Surely, life shouldn't be that hard. But, of course, it can be. This was a fine programme (maybe the music was debatable) which worked because it told the story without sermonising or gimmickry. The pity is that, being in Irish, it will have attracted only a small audience.
About 10 people every week commit suicide in Ireland and the figure is growing. Among young men, only road accidents kill more. It may be that the figures are distorted by the level of denial of suicide in the past. Even so, it's clear that something has gone badly wrong in the last couple of decades. Love and stuff; life and stuff; death ... and stuff. All we can do is keep on trying to understand this mysterious "stuff". Cursai Reatha's contribution helps a bit.
FINALLY, Finucane addressed some very weighty stuff. Child abuse, euthanasia and lesbianism formed the agenda for the opening programme in Marian Finucane's new 11 part series. Predictably, this was Liveline with pictures, but Marian Finucane's pleasant, gently probing common sense allowed serious points to be made without the sort of propaganda and hysteria which television often extracts from such contentious subjects.
This is an issue cent red talk show and therein lie its strengths and weaknesses. If you're passionately interested in an issue, the earnestness of Finucane's talking heads can strike the right note. But if the subject does not seriously engage you, neither Finucane's conviviality nor her guests' mostly measured contributions are likely to keep the zapper from your fingers.
Perversely, the most propagandising guest - Dr Berry Kiely of Doctors for Life (which to the terminally ill could be Doctors for Continued Suffering) - made the most lasting impression. Opposing euthanasia (because of the dangers of abuse, this is a position not without vibrant defences), Dr Kiely based her arguments on "the dangers to society".
However, these dangers were not made sufficiently clear and the good doctor's attempted dismissal of strong opposing arguments which were based on the rights of individuals was, in itself, deathly weak.
Referring to people who have made considered and clear minded requests for their lives to be terminated legally, Dr Kiely spoke about of them as "seemingly" wanting to die. Arrogant and patronising, this was "nanny knows best" medicine and Marian Finucane let nanny off too lightly. There are 10 weeks to run in this latest RTE version of talk television. Its tone is promising but hard stuff requires a slightly harder edge - a little more confrontation without hyping it into contrived controversy.
