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Deirdre O’Kane Talks Funny (RTÉ One, 9.10pm) is experiencing an identity crisis and will do little to fix RTÉ’s Saturday night schedule. The sit-in host and guest format suggests an in-depth talk show in the vein of Piers Morgan’s Life Stories.
But that’s not what works when O’Kane cuddles with the first of six comedians he’ll be joking around with over the next several weeks. She and Pat Shortt are friends, we learn, and their conversation has the lively vagueness of two old friends catching up.
There is no deep analysis and not much humor. Shortt laughs and laughs, but as the episode progresses, his screams take on a slightly disconcerting tone. It is the laugh of someone who covers uncomfortable silences.
This is not a reflection of O’Kane, who takes full advantage of a test formula. It also doesn’t downplay the importance of RTÉ greenlighting a weekend chat show hosted by women (to belatedly joining Miriam O’Callaghan’s Saturday Night With Miriam, which ran for several years beginning in 2005). This should have happened decades ago. It says something about the entrenched gender dynamics in Irish society that still qualifies as novelty.
Shortt, meanwhile, is a natural charlatan. Of course, we already know, since it feels like I’m on RTÉ so often anyway.
For Talks Funny to work, then, you have to go beyond the Late Late Lite bonhomie and participate more deeply. And it is not that there is a lack of material. Did Shortt’s mother’s death when he was young make it into a comedy, for example? He explains in a throwaway comment that his father recently revealed that he won an All Ireland medal in 1947. But for what? Throw? Handball? Competitive Monkey Toss ?.
Was shortt snr buttoned in other ways? Could this have contributed to the duality of Shortt’s career, which has gone from the boisterous and burly comedy of Killinaskully to misery extravagances like Lenny Abrahamson’s Garage? You don’t realize Shortt either as a person or as a comedian.
O’Kane, to his credit, finds an interesting line of inquiry when he questions him about his reluctance to perform his chart-topping song Jumbo Breakfast Roll.
But Talks Funny is just not set to be the kind of show where guests are pressured to reveal their deepest selves. However, it is unclear what kind of program it is supposed to be.
O’Kane, it bears repeating, is hardly to blame. She is friendly, quick on her feet, and never less than serene and professional. She deserves a showcase at the height of her talents.
Unfortunately, the aura of complacency that hangs over the whole thing is unpleasant, never more so than when Shortt uncovers an anecdote with Ryan Tubridy and Graham Norton. Cynics will complain that RTÉ is just having a conversation with himself again while the rest of us are pressed against the window, jaws dropped. It’s a low point in a transmission that doesn’t have enough high points to compensate.
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