(Network 2, Tuesday)
Omnibus: Roddy Doyle Ha Ha Ha (BBC 1, Monday)
20th Century Sins (ITV, Sunday)
Don't Feed The Gondolas (Network 2, Monday)
`I call these people `jungle bunnies'," said Wayne, "and that's not an insult, that's a compliment." An aspiring actor, Wayne had taken time off from his thespian aspirations to air his opinions on refugees. It was as well, I'm sure, that we got Wayne's complimentary views. Had he set out to insult refugees, he might have said something nasty. He may, of course, have been acting - aspiring to land a role as Bernard Manning, perhaps. But he wasn't and his opinions were as vile as we've heard on TV in quite some time. Wayne's Ireland, never mind Wayne's world, is an alarming place.
Alarming too is the fact that, fresh from the screening of her visit to Knock, Clare McKeon has miraculously landed yet another chat show. Titled clare, it has a broader remit than last year's Later with Clare McKeon, which was really a sexist televised women's magazine in love with what it believed to be its own frankness. Now, with its starker title, it aims to discuss issues of concern to men as well as women. Given the starkness of Wayne's contribution, it may be about to use shock-guff to win ratings. It's not, in fairness, a Jerry Springer effort but, if its switch from sexism to racism is indicative of the future, it, unfortunately, has the potential.
Accompanying Wayne and Clare were two refugees (a Bosnian woman and a Nigerian man); a female academic, originally from Trinidad, but living in Ireland for the last 22 years and Aine Ni Chonaill, fuhrer of Ireland's "Immigration Control Platform". Though it sounds like something you might reasonably expect to find in a border town's railway station, the Immigration Control Platform is rather less neutral than that. Ms Ni Chonaill spoke about "the invasion of Europe" and about the "bien pensant cabal" which is encouraging the refugee hordes to swamp our citadels of civilisation.
Ms McKeon was not impressed by Ms Ni Chonaill's tirade. She objected to the use of a foreign phrase, a censure which, it could be argued, was in itself xenophobic. In truth though, it was a typical chat show put-down - pandering to populism in the name of common sense. However, Ms Ni Chonaill fought her corner like an alley cat and charged Ms McKeon with trying to be like "a female Vincent Browne" - an alarming image indeed! Ms Ni Chonaill insisted that she is not a racist and proceeded to engage in a blazing row with Jean Dunne, the academic, over the normal meaning of the term.
Ms Dunne spoke about "the Other" - a term as redolent of a seminar room as Wayne's "jungle bunnies" is of a Combat 18 convention - and Ms Ni Chonaill dismissed it all as "pseudo-sophistication". Having introduced a French phrase to the discussion, Ms Ni Chonaill was clearly trying to have her cake and eat it. Ms McKeon wore a grave face. "What are you trying to preserve?" Ms Dunne asked the representative of the Immigration Control Platform in exasperation. She didn't, of course, get a satisfactory answer in any language.
Off camera, Wayne was animated again. We could hear him mutter an explanation for his racist "compliment" ("jungle bunnies - they live in the wild and they multiply") and even the legendarily unembarrassable Ms McKeon looked downwards and blushed. Wayne was not only offensive, he sounded quite sick (which, by the way, Wayne, is, in context, not an insult but a compliment). Parading him on a chat show may have seemed like including a representative of a particular section of public opinion. But whether or not free speech should include the right to abuse the right to free speech is another matter.
Certainly, gratuitous insults on TV cannot but grab viewers. Wayne may have revelled, as aspiring actors usually do, in the publicity. There is the argument too that he was given enough rope to hang himself. But people who think like him will not have been dissuaded and people who don't will have been offended. It's one thing to use intemperate, even abusive language about people with power and position. It's another matter to allow attacks on such vulnerable people as refugees. Mind you, Wayne has sections of the media on his side and they, like Ms Ni Chonaill - the putative Enoch Powell of Ireland - are more insidious.
In its defence, this latest RTE chat show did take on a serious topic. There can be no doubting that immigration has supplanted emigration as a major issue in Ireland. It is complex, and a multi-racial Ireland may well emerge in the coming decades. Whether or not this type of television programme can ease the transition is another matter, however. By including Wayne and his vile opinions, we didn't so much get openness as a realisation that it's a long, long way from clare to a chat show that can deal adequately with such a contentious subject.
The man who famously wrote that the Irish are the blacks of Europe, Dubliners the blacks of Ireland and Northsiders the blacks of Dublin was profiled on Omnibus: Roddy Doyle Ha Ha Ha. Since the success of The Commitments and the 1993 Booker Prize for Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha, Doyle has divided Irish literary opinion. Opening with Mustang Sally blaring over images of Dublin city centre, it was clear that this would be a positive profile of a writer who genuinely enjoys popular culture football, rock music, crime novels - and who did succeed, albeit not singlehandedly, in switching the focus of Irish fiction from rural to urban.
Screened to coincide with the launch of Doyle's latest book, A Star Called Henry, this profile will have done no harm to potential sales. Moving, like the writer's latest lead character, from Dublin to Chicago, it was a buoyant and breezy affair, its tone generally reflecting the dominant mood of Doyle's Barrytown trilogy of novels. For his part, Doyle insisted that he is most proud of the much darker The Woman Who Walked Into Doors - in spite of its much more limited commercial success. The impression made was that Roddy, at least in his writing, is keen to shed his comic, laddish reputation.
This may well be because of Roddy Doyle's development as a novelist. But more prosaically it's probably because he's now hitting middle-age, a condition which is seldom funny for those experiencing it. He admits that many of his fans are not keen on the idea of his switching from comedy. What this profile failed to do, however, was to examine the sometimes-voiced contention that maybe Doyle has patronised "rale Dubs" - that along with the heroic depictions of working-class Kilbarrackers, he has been condescending towards them. Certainly, the character "Charlo", as portrayed in the television drama Family, could have been viewed as a corrective to a vision that working-class life is all about salt-of-the-earth, indomitable Dubs.
There was, in fairness, some mention of Doyle's abrasions with the Irish lit-crit set. But it was brief and seemed to be included merely in passing. Whether or not Roddy Doyle represents an attempt to wrest "literature" away from a rather precious middle-class elite remains a central question - at least in Ireland. Certainly, his winning of the Booker Prize, even allowing that some dreadful, as well as some wonderful writing has won it down the years, was a kick in the groin for a number of critics. Indeed, the comedy generated by that was, in ways, even more uproarious than anything Doyle ever wrote.
Anyway, watching the BBC screen old home movies of Roddy Doyle as a child - at the seaside, in new school uniform, playing in the garden - it did seem strange that RTE has never screened a similar, biographical treatment. Maeve Binchy was the only Irish writer interviewed for this profile, and none of Doyle's more trenchant critics were featured either. Of course, we can hardly blame Roddy Doyle for this but it did demonstrate that, devoid of local squabbles, there was a gap in this rather PR-ish celebration of Ireland's lone Booker Prize winner. Without doubt, Doyle can afford a hearty ha ha ha after, as one of his characters might put it, such an easy ride.
In extreme contrast to refugees and working-class Dubs, 20th Century Sins: Consumerism brought us Beverley Bloom. Beverley has a £15,000a-month "allowance" (allowed by whom, wasn't specified), most of which she spends on clothes. We saw Bev in action in London's West End and it would be difficult to imagine a more vain, vacuous and voracious creature. Strutting into boutiques, where, not surprisingly, sales assistants behaved like sales slaves, clothesaholic Bev was almost as distasteful as racist Wayne.
Cut to an order of nuns in central London. Having taken a vow of poverty, they don't even own their own habits. They do not understand the concept of consumerism as a recreational sport or the idea that shopping malls are now central to "culture". Canon Martin Shaw presented this black and white picture of consumerism and, while the contrast between Bev Bloom and the nuns was rather extreme, it did make the point. Shaw's argument, however, that commercial culture was devaluing other traditional institutions was poorly thought out. Of course it is, but many traditional institutions have shown that they are well able to devalue themselves anyway.
"People are increasingly judged by what they own than by what they produce," said contributor Tony Benn. Shaw added that the project of commercial culture is to turn people into "battery consumers". Cue footage of battery hens. It was a strong image. Given the excesses of so much current television advertising, it was also ironic. Consumerism clearly wants to turn people into battery viewers. Anyway, as the credits began and we saw Bev Bloom moving off in a limousine, the idea of consumerism as a "sin" seemed too judgmental and irrelevant. Bev's behaviour wasn't sinful - it was, like Wayne's, just sick.
Finally, Don't Feed The Gondolas. Like Later with Clare McKeon, this Network 2 effort has been given an extensive revamp. The changes have improved it too. It is livelier and more witty, sharper and snappier and, while it still seems too pleased with itself too often, its satire is largely welcome. Sean Moncrieff continues as presenter, as do Brendan O'Connor and Dara O Briain as the other resident loudmouths. But it's more scripted and tighter now, having dispensed with the Have I Got News For You format of competing teams. O Briain's Brian Kennedy/Ronan Keating mick-take was probably the highlight.
Mind you, O'Connor's promo for the new series (the one about ballerinas wanting to grab his ankles) was better than anything in the show itself. But what can you say about Network 2's promos for Storm Warning, a new series which began last night? A jaunty voiceover hypes this series about "mother nature" throwing convulsions. Great crack, eh? See hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanos, tidal waves and whatever you're having yourself. Turn on the news these last few weeks and you find that tens of thousands of people have been killed by such natural disasters. Sure, such stuff can make spectacular TV - but is it necessary to flog it with a jaunty, hyped-up promo? This consumerism lark is pretty grim, alright. Sick, actually!