Suspended animation Fay, Liam . Sunday Times ; London (UK) [London (UK)]03 Jan 1999: 29. ProQuest document link ABSTRACT (ABSTRACT) Ascript consultant and editor worked on Upwardly Mobile (Christmas Day, RTE 1). There are individuals who are willing to be named publicly as its writers. Such details tend to contradict my long- standing impression that the actors make it up as they go along. The Christmas special was larded with jokes funny only in that it was comical watching the unfortunate actors trying to get a laugh with them. Upwardly Mobile is, ostensibly, filmed before a live audience and one drawn, I assume, from a somewhat wider pool than the Dublin nursing homes from which RTE regularly buses patients in order to fill empty studio seats. On the Comedy Store Irish Special (Christmas Day, Network 2), comic Kevin Hayes recalled the glory days of Lolek and Bolek, the Czechoslovakian stick figures with whom RTE seemed to fill every hiatus in its schedules during the 1970s. The irony was that the Comedy Store show was itself a Bolekian filler, an instalment ripped from a cheapo Channel 5 stand-up series on the flimsy grounds that the four comedians happened to be Irish. FULL TEXT Ascript consultant and editor worked on Upwardly Mobile (Christmas Day, RTE 1). There are individuals who are willing to be named publicly as its writers. Such details tend to contradict my long- standing impression that the actors make it up as they go along. But then, I watched an episode on tape, twice, and realised how the cast coped; they were obviously being fed the lines by an off- screen prompter while they performed. Nobody could have committed this witless dreck to memory without eventually committing themselves. I am convinced, therefore, that as they uttered it, the actors were hearing the dialogue for the first time. This also explained why most of them concluded their every line with a whinny of derision and a little moue of disgust. The Christmas special was larded with jokes funny only in that it was comical watching the unfortunate actors trying to get a laugh with them. Upwardly Mobile is, ostensibly, filmed before a live audience and one drawn, I assume, from a somewhat wider pool than the Dublin nursing homes from which RTE regularly buses patients in order to fill empty studio seats. What's remarkable about this "live" audience is that it behaves exactly like a canned-laughter machine. It whoops, cheers and applauds at moments when a genuinely sentient human being would get up and walk out. In the Christmas special, Barreller and Willie agreed to flip a coin to resolve a dispute. "Heads I win, tails you lose," said Barreller. The audience erupted in a Krakatoa of uncontrollable mirth. PDF GENERATED BY PROQUEST.COM Page 1 of 4 Upwardly Mobile was merely the Carrauntoohil of crud in the MacGillycuddy Reeks of manure that was the RTE Christmas schedule. Scrutinising the listings, one felt like a navigator aboard Richard Branson's doomed balloon: the best one could hope for was to avoid total disaster. On the Comedy Store Irish Special (Christmas Day, Network 2), comic Kevin Hayes recalled the glory days of Lolek and Bolek, the Czechoslovakian stick figures with whom RTE seemed to fill every hiatus in its schedules during the 1970s. The irony was that the Comedy Store show was itself a Bolekian filler, an instalment ripped from a cheapo Channel 5 stand-up series on the flimsy grounds that the four comedians happened to be Irish. Each comic was interviewed by Arthur Smith, a man with a face that hasn't so much been lived in as trashed by a bunch of drunken squatters. As an interrogator, Smith makes Des Cahill look like Jeremy Paxman. He under stands so little about Irish life he could commission documentaries for RTE. This is what he asked northern stand-up Owen O'Neill: "Have the IRA ever tried to kill you?" The Apres Match Christmas Special (Sunday, Network 2) was barely more than a compilation of what the crew clearly regard as their greatest skits. This ill-conceived programme affirmed one of the abiding truths about television satire: in vignettes veritas . Piled atop one another, the sketches lost much of their impact. The surrealism teetered over into silliness. One glimpse of Gary Cooke's pursing, puckering Eamon Dunphy is hilarious; an hour of it becomes risible. Nevertheless, the newly written scenes suggested a potentially rich future for the characters. Risteard Cooper's uncanny Bill O'Herlihy hosted a party in his house amid the strains of his theme song, Aww Right Now. Sent to buy the booze, Frank Stapleton (Barry Murphy) had got himself locked inside a closed off-licence, his only companion a security camera that he seemed to think was TnaG. Starved of liquor, Dunphy, Giles and O'Herlihy drank Miwadi and played charades. True to form, Giles (Cooke, again) woofed with surly indignation when Bill failed to decode his clues while Eamon rhapsodised "the subtle intricacies" of the Giles mind. Parodying the blether of sports pundits is one of the most dog- eared cli ches of contemporary comedy. It's a game of two halves, and there's no percentage in it. Cooper, Cooke and Murphy are talented enough to create a selfcontained, out-of-studio world for their characters, something like BBC2's Stella Street, which reaps much comic hay by transplanting a galaxy of superstars (Pacino, Bowie, Mick 'n' Keef) into a sleepy suburban estate in Surrey. How much more fun could Apres Match have with the puffed-up mini-celebrities of the RTE sports department, men who have come to believe that their every banality sparkles with insight simply because they appear on television during the transmission of top football games? The banality was unloaded by the truckload during the Nobel Peace Prize Concert (Sunday, RTE 1). One could only feel sympathy for John Hume and David Trimble as they sat in that Oslo auditorium enduring endlessly preening performances and duckbilled platitudes from the likes of Phil Collins, the Cranberries and Alanis Morissette. Morisette demonstrated her single-minded devotion to the principle of compromise by wearing purple pants with a puce dress and a black leather apron. She ostentatiously dedicated Thank U to John and David, and they could only have been deeply moved as she warbled "How 'bout getting off these antibiotics?..." Keen to showcase the famed excellence of Norwegian pop, the organisers peppered the bill with local heroes. The best of them was a band called Espen Lind, all blue hair and flying-V guitars. PDF GENERATED BY PROQUEST.COM Page 2 of 4 On tape, there were handsome tributes to the Nobel laureates from key global statesmen (Blair, Ahern, Clinton, Bono). Meanwhile, one of the blokes from the Cranberries spoke for us all when he said of the Northern Ireland situation: "It's gone on long enough now so it'd be good if it'd just quieten down a bit." A-Ha re-formed specially for the concert, and played all of their hits. The word is that if there's a credible start to decommissioning, Roxette have promised to get back together. DETAILS Publication title: Sunday Times; London (UK) Pages: 29 Number of pages: 0 Publication year: 1999 Publication date: Jan 3, 1999 Section: Features Publisher: News International Trading Limited. Place of publication: London (UK) Country of publication: United Kingdom, London (UK) Publication subject: General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain ISSN: 09561382 Source type: Newspapers Language of publication: English Document type: NEWSPAPER ProQuest document ID: 320690692 Document URL: https://search.proquest.com/newspapers/suspendedanimation/docview/320690692/se-2?accountid=9727 Copyright: Copyright News International Newspapers Ltd. Jan 3, 1999 Last updated: 2017-11-14 Database: European Newsstream PDF GENERATED BY PROQUEST.COM Page 3 of 4 LINKS Linking Service Database copyright 2021 ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. Terms and Conditions Contact ProQuest PDF GENERATED BY PROQUEST.COM Page 4 of 4
