Telly Bingo - since when did..

Basq

.. Shirley Temple-Bar start doing Telly Bingo out of drag?

Was flicking around and it's on Network 2... and "it's" out of drag, for once!

Still sounds the same as a bloke..
Still holds that constant grin throughout the show..

Would you look at the state of that?..

Tiriel

I think I prefer the drag to be honest!!!

trotter_inc

Ha ha - thats one crap show - how can people listen to that yoke for half an hour!!

Dr. Dre

Was going to post about this myself, also caught this whilst channel surfing last night. Erm.........words fail me

samo

its strangley compulsive though, you wonder how much one person can say without breaking a smile.

I have this vision of this aul ones down on a farm in the middle of nowhere thinking that would be a lovely lassie to marry her son off to!!!

SoupyNorman

trotter_inc wrote:

Ha ha - thats one crap show - how can people listen to that yoke for half an hour!!

The show is mainly watched by O.A.P's, bingo is a religion to them.Sure they probably dont even notice its a drag "ar$ehole".

BolBill

samo wrote:

its strangley compulsive though, you wonder how much one person can say without breaking a smile.

I have this vision of this aul ones down on a farm in the middle of nowhere thinking that would be a lovely lassie to marry her son off to!!!

Thats it exactly samo, they've no idea.

Hagar

The first time I saw that yoke on Net2 I got a sharp blade and cut the Net2 button off the remote in case I acccidentally pressed it and saw "it" again.

simu

Something in the paper about this but not worth remembering - he was tired of getting dressed up for the part or something.

SprostonGreen

simu wrote:

Something in the paper about this but not worth remembering - he was tired of getting dressed up for the part or something.

He was finding it a bit of a drag??


Right, I'm off to the cloakroom.

simu

SprostonGreen wrote:

He was finding it a bit of a drag??


Right, I'm off to the cloakroom.

That's the kind of awful joke ... I'd give you karma for if I had any left to dish out.

SprostonGreen

simu wrote:

That's the kind of awful joke ... I'd give you karma for if I had any left to dish out.

You can owe me!!

RobertFoster

The radio (2FM or something...) said RTE told him to lose the drag image or something...

chewy

in and out of drag so there!

John R

A drag queen that can't be arsed to put on make-up. There is something terribly Irish about that.

patrickmooney

From the times on sunday:

It’s a drag being Shirley says RTE’s ‘new’ lotto host
Scott Millar

NOW you see him/her, now you don’t. Ireland’s bingo players, accustomed to having their numbers called by the country’s most famous drag queen, were surprised last week to find “she” had hung up the wig and been replaced by “her” brother.

Shirley Temple Bar, who has presented Telly Bingo since 2001, disappeared from the nation’s television screens, only to be replaced by Declan Buckley, the character’s creator, nominally appearing as her brother.

RTE and the National Lottery say the sex change has more to do with freshening up the image of the show than the complaints the station receives about the transvestite presenter.

“There has been a constant trickle of complaints since the show began, but it was clearly the same few people who had developed an obsession,” said an RTE spokesman.

“What is surprising is the change in attitudes over the past few years. RTE’s recent evening of gay-themed programming, which included a feature on Shirley Temple Bar, actually received nearly as many calls in praise as complaints.”

Buckley said: “I was looking for some more scope to be myself. For television it was a toned-down Shirley Temple Bar anyway.”

Buckley, 32, a business graduate from Dublin, gave Shirley her debut at the Alternative Miss Ireland awards in the George, Dublin’s best-known gay pub, in 1997. Shirley then began to presented a regular bingo show in the pub, prompting the National Lottery to hire her for its twice-weekly Telly Bingo show three years ago.

Lottery officials say they hired Temple Bar to front Telly Bingo because they wanted “something new” to make the programme distinctive. But it has now been revamped, with a new studio and a virtual reality style, and lottery officials have decided to experiment with the presenter as well.

“After a certain amount of time with any format you have to innovate,” said a lottery spokesman. “Players do get tired and you constantly have to stimulate the market.”

Buckley debuted as himself on Tuesday’s show, and the National Lottery said it had no calls complaining that Temple Bar had gone, or welcoming her replacement. She is not being permanently replaced, but will rotate with her “brother”, and should make another appearance before Christmas.

“We are going to monitor this and see what our players think,” the lottery said.

Buckley sees himself as following in the footsteps of the comedian Paul O’Grady who left behind his Lily Savage persona to pursue a career as himself. “At the end of the day, behind the make-up, we are men, and it’s just less hassle to be yourself,” said Buckley.