RADIO REVIEW/Harry Browne: 'In a situation where many people are claiming all sorts of knowledge, I'm happy to plead my ignorance." The SDLP's Mark Durkan, on Monday's News at One (RTÉ Radio 1, Monday to Friday), made one of the most appealingly modest statements of the week about Stormontgate, and followed it with a sly twist on the standard soundbite: "What will we know?" he demanded, "and when will we know it?"
It was notable this week that, after some breathless and mildly credulous early reportage, most of RTÉ's coverage took up Durkan's air of "wait and see" about the events around the NIO photocopier. David Trimble's assertion that they constituted a scandal "10 times worse than Watergate" certainly failed to capture the mood on the airwaves, south of the Border at any rate.
Sinn Féin made hay by suggesting it was less Watergate than Spy Versus Spy. On This Week (RTÉ Radio 1, Sunday), Martin McGuinness seemed to pussyfoot around outright denials, but certainly hammered home the "everyone is doing it" point. By Monday's Five Seven Live (RTÉ Radio 1, Monday to Friday), Gerry Adams was crossing the line into unequivocal denial - though perhaps the value of an Adams denial has slumped on the open market since Ed Moloney's book extracts started to appear. However, Adams also came up with the best image of the espionage state, repeated on TV that evening, when he told reporters that when the Secretary of State wants to talk to him in confidence, he takes him out of the office.
As if that weren't spooky enough, we had the Michael McKevitt case at the Special Criminal Court. On day one, RTÉ's Paul Reynolds sounded a little baffled: when Sean O'Rourke asked him to explain to News at One listeners why the British ambassador was there to testify, the best Reynolds could manage was to say that there were five people there to give evidence and that the ambassador was one.
Happily, your columnist had already heard the Lunchtime News with Damien Kiberd (NewsTalk 106, Monday to Friday), so I knew exactly what the diplomat was doing there. Kiberd's phone guest was Henry McDonald from the Observer, and in five minutes we heard more penetrating insight into the McKevitt case than in a week of Reynolds reporting.
With all these goings-on, Sunday Playhouse: Caifé Guevara (RTÉ Radio 1, Sunday) could hardly have been more timely. Gerard McSorley, no less, played Donal McEvoy, an unrepentant IRA bomber back on the streets of Belfast as part of the peace process, coping with changes in the family, the movement, the city and himself. The play, by Pól Ó Muirí, part-time of the Irish Times parish), had quite a cast - Rosaleen Linehan, Miche Doherty and Máire Andrews. They did a fair job with the halting, naturalistic dialogue, which jumped occasionally, believably, into Gaeilge.
It was occasionally slow, a little speechifying, but if it was also a bit familiar it's not because we've heard much of this on RTÉ radio. Movies and plays about the Troubles, sure, and work on BBC radio too. But though Caifé Guevara was by no means sympathetic to IRA ways and means, RTÉ has steered clear of even this degree of humanising drama about "volunteers". In a credible voice, McEvoy complains about his last years in prison. "We knew it was all over bar the shouting - nothing but 'peace process' this, 'peace process' that. Boring. Fuckin' boring."
It's not often you'll hear a soulful sound on BBC Radio 5 Live, usually home on the dial to jocks and anoraks. However, this week, Simon Mayo (BBC Radio 5 Live, Monday to Friday) hit a serious groove, when he was joined in the studio by the simultaneous soul presences of Natalie Cole and Solomon Burke. Now, based on the new tracks we heard excerpted, it's probably fair to say that neither artist is at the height of her/his powers. But let me tell you, the radio was fairly glowing with their warmth - directed toward the audience, sure, but mostly toward each other. Praise and blessings showered down upon each one from the other, with Burke sounding like he could die right now, happy, having shared a room with Cole. He told her his opinion of her father, Nat: "He just had that certain touch" - "tetch", he purred, really - "that tetch that said, 'It's easy'." Just as well Burke didn't keel over after delivering that judgment, because Mayo then brought on to the phone line a young actor who is playing the 1969-vintage Burke in a new musical in London, 125th Street. This appeared to be the first Burke had heard that he was being thus impersonated for profit, and he was eager to share his excitement: "Hey, man, it is sooo good to talk to you. Where's my cheque?"