Val Falvey TD

Lemondrop kid

johnfunk wrote: »

New Zealand gave us Flight of the Conchords granted with a little help of HBO.

Yes, now that was excellent - so it can be done by a small population!

Wyndman wrote: »

I It was probably sat on for months (rte are very slow at getting back to people) until of course the hasty re-edits ordered by Fianna fail.

Er, do you really think FF could influence the prog content? - i find that impossible to believe

hellboy99

Can I have my licence fee refunded please.

Lemondrop kid

stephen_mch wrote: »

Yeah but in fairness a lot of Irish stuff is better than that! But then thats just my opinion

Better than the flight of the condors?
Hmmm, we'll have to agree to differ on that one

The Prophet

stephen_mch wrote: »

But then thats just my opinion

Phew. I thought it was Neil Armstrong's opinion before you clarified. Cheers.

johnfunk

Lemondrop kid wrote: »

Er, do you really think FF could influence the prog content? - i find that impossible to believe

Check out yesterdays Sunday tribune. There was an article about how the colour of the titles had to be changed so as not to upset our glorious leaders. Also didn't anybody notice that it was originally meant to air the previous Sunday but was pulled and replaced with that show where two gob****es decorate a showhouse in some soulless housing estate down the country!

Wyndman

Lemondrop kid wrote: »

Er, do you really think FF could influence the prog content? - i find that impossible to believe

http://www.tribune.ie/news/home-news/article/2009/nov/22/rte-order-ensures-political-satire-doesnt-offend-f/
Sorry.

The Conchords TV show is a wholly American production, the writers/leads aside.

Lemondrop kid

Wyndman wrote: »

http://www.tribune.ie/news/home-news/article/2009/nov/22/rte-order-ensures-political-satire-doesnt-offend-f/
Sorry.

The Conchords TV show is a wholly American production, the writers/leads aside.

Right. but the two guys write the stuff?
That's what's really needed for Irish comedy, proper production team, inclduing proper script editor. must be hard to get. will check out that link

mattman

just watched naked camera!

now that funny!! haha..

val whats his name? who cares!

m.

Borneo Fnctn

The premise of the show has so much potential. I fell asleep watching it, and I very rarely sleep in the middle of the day. I'll give it another shot next week though.

ednwireland

baalthor wrote: »

1. Could any TD really be this stupid and unassertive?

have you ever met a td who is in the family firm !

dreadfully unfunny show, with the times that are in it could have been a really hard hitting satire (but then RTE wouldnt have shown it)

Meeja Ireland

Wyndman wrote: »

Ireland has proportionally more or less the same amount of talent as other nations but the reason it doesn't show up on camera is the uselessness of the self-appointed few (normally with marketing, accounting or PR backgrounds) who control the resources.

We may well have the same ratio of talented people as other countries. I don't think anyone has suggested that we have fewer. But we are a very small country.

We also have a huge welcoming market a ferry-ride away which pays better than any Irish outlet ever can. It is just as absurd to list every comedy triumph of the BBC and bewail our lack of contenders as to wonder why the League of Ireland doesn't have four teams in the Champions League.

In comedy, the situation has been worsened by a culture within RTE of not nurturing talent and not taking risks. The second of those will never change as long as our state controls our broadcasting so directly. The first IS changing.

To produce successful comedy we need to commission people of promise and allow them to fail. (Puts on kettle, awaits obvious comeback.) That's what is happening. We may not like Mathews or Jason Byrne or the rest, but these are the award-winning, hall-packing comedians of our day. Shows like The Panel give slots to newer people.

What is there about this process that people have a problem with? We will never have a culture of decent TV comedy until (1) there is an outlet on RTE, and (2) there are talented people willing to take advantage of that.

I don't know about (2), but (1) exists.

Someone made a brilliant point about the underuse of radio as a testing-ground. That needs to change too.

Meeja Ireland

ednwireland wrote: »

have you ever met a td who is in the family firm !

dreadfully unfunny show, with the times that are in it could have been a really hard hitting satire (but then RTE wouldnt have shown it)

And it would be naive to expect them to.

I doubt if the writer ever intended the show to be hard-hitting. It seems to aim squarely at the sleepy Sunday mainstream. That's a demographic that is presumably under-represented on Boards.

It will be interesting to see what the ratings were like. Does anybody know?

Lemondrop kid

Meeja Ireland wrote: »

And it would be naive to expect them to.

I doubt if the writer ever intended the show to be hard-hitting. It seems to aim squarely at the sleepy Sunday mainstream. That's a demographic that is presumably under-represented on Boards.

It will be interesting to see what the ratings were like. Does anybody know?

That's exactly the problem the belief that the sleep Sunday demographic are also without intelligence.
It is very possible to show good comedy at this peak viewing time - it doen't have to be offensive or controversial to be funny, for example Fawlty Towers, or Only fools and Horses, Some Mother's do 'ave 'em,Dad's Army, It aint half hot mum, the good life, the likely lads. Even if then went for the reasonably (occasionally) funny (The Mrs Bucket thing) 'it wouldn't be so bad. But this and Killnaskully say 'you're dumb -you deserve no better'

Lemondrop kid

Wyndman wrote: »

http://www.tribune.ie/news/home-news/article/2009/nov/22/rte-order-ensures-political-satire-doesnt-offend-f/
Sorry.

The Conchords TV show is a wholly American production, the writers/leads aside.

Checked that out. I think it was more a case of RTE not wanting to seem partisan (esp after the George Lee episode)
Let me stress i have NO political allegiances, just suprised that the gov could directly influence a comedy show - still.

Wertz

Lemondrop kid wrote: »

Let me stress i have NO political allegiances, just suprised that the gov could directly influence a comedy show - still.

Bull Island anyone?
RTÉ know who ultimately hold the marionette strings and it pays to toe the line.
If ever there was a time we needed hard hitting political satire it's now...instead we're served up this lame duck and they try and turn the Panel into Q&A's lite for 20-somethings...

Meeja Ireland

Lemondrop kid wrote: »

That's exactly the problem the belief that the sleep Sunday demographic are also without intelligence.
It is very possible to show good comedy at this peak viewing time - it doen't have to be offensive or controversial to be funny, for example Fawlty Towers, or Only fools and Horses, Dad's Army, It aint half hot mum, the good life, the likely lads. Even if then went for the reasonably (occasionally) funny (The Mrs Bucket thing) 'it would be so bad. But this and Killnaskully say 'you're dumb -you deserve no better'

Whose attitude do you think that is? I just can't see Arthur Mathews setting out to write something stupid. He must also have the weight to resist any dumbing-down orders from RTE management, or from the production company.

There is a severe shortage of good script editors in Ireland. Maybe that's part of the problem?

Aidric

Wertz wrote: »

RTÉ know who ultimately hold the marionette strings and it pays to toe the line.
If ever there was a time we needed hard hitting political satire it's now...instead we're served up this lame duck and they try and turn the Panel into Q&A's lite for 20-somethings...

You're right. The pickings are ripe for a biting satire at the moment.

Lemondrop kid

Wertz wrote: »

Bull Island anyone?
RTÉ know who ultimately hold the marionette strings and it pays to toe the line.
If ever there was a time we needed hard hitting political satire it's now...instead we're served up this lame duck and they try and turn the Panel into Q&A's lite for 20-somethings...

Not to mention scrap saturday (oops, mentioned it) Very true about the Panel by the way- whatever it's faults, it seemed unfettered with the usual nonsense, but watched it recently and was much confused - what the hell is Williams doing there?

Meeja Ireland wrote: »

Whose attitude do you think that is? I just can't see Arthur Mathews setting out to write something stupid. He must also have the weight to resist any dumbing-down orders from RTE management, or from the production company.

There is a severe shortage of good script editors in Ireland. Maybe that's part of the problem?

Well the only other conclusion is that Mathews has lost his talent...

But even if that were true is there NO ONE who could have said STOP!!! this is crap.

Lemondrop kid

baalthor wrote: »

Well, even though it's a comedy about a politician I don't think anyone is going to confuse it with "Yes Minister!" or even "The New Statesman" ...



The fact that he's an Independent is also a problem for the story line. It means that there won't be any interaction with party colleagues or any addressing of national political issues. I guess the writers wanted to play it safe here but it's a bit like "Father Ted" trying not to offend the Catholic Church.

Very good point


I get the feeling that the central idea was "idiot rural TD" and the writers don't actually know very much about the lifestyle of a typical TD. Contrast this with "Yes Minister" where you end up thinking "Oh God, I bet that's what really does happen .."

Ditto

The other main problem is that the lead character is an unassertive idiot.
I think the lead character in a sitcom can either be one or the other but not both. Homer Simpson, Peter Griffin, Frank Drebbin, the guy in Kilnaskully are all "dumb" characters but they make things happen. Falvey on the other hand is dumb but seems to be completely dominated by his adviser.

And this last bit hits the nail on the head - it's actually the structural premise here that is the problem.
The main character be he nice, nasty, or dumb, must move the story forward- not be carried forward - this is a fundamental rule with storyline.
A second premise specifically in comedy is
Nutter in sane enviroment or
Sane person in Crazy enviroment
Think of any comedy -they fall into one or the other.
Here we have a nutter (dumb in this case) in a nutter enviroment= failure

Wertz

Lemondrop kid wrote: »

Not to mention scrap saturday (oops, mentioned it) Very true about the Panel by the way- whatever it's faults, it seemed unfettered with the usual nonsense, but watched it recently and was much confused - what the hell is Williams doing there?

Yep, Scrap Saturday as well, and that was definitely toned down/removed through political channels. Morgan did a lot of good for the country through his work on that show, took a lot of people down a few pegs and woke up listeners to a lot of what was going on at the time.

As for the panel...I like McWilliams, but this is not his place...it would seem to me that his placing is in some attempt to deliver economic realities and political messages to the yoof by trying to make it semi-light hearted infotainment. I think they're ultimately damaging that show/format (some might say it's beyond fixing) by using it in this way...
Maybe I read too much into it, but that's how it comes across...

Lemondrop kid

Wertz wrote: »

Yep, Scrap Saturday as well, and that was definitely toned down/removed through political channels. Morgan did a lot of good for the country through his work on that show, took a lot of people down a few pegs and woke up listeners to a lot of what was going on at the time.

As for the panel...I like McWilliams, but this is not his place...it would seem to me that his placing is in some attempt to deliver economic realities and political messages to the yoof by trying to make it semi-light hearted infotainment. I think they're ultimately damaging that show/format (some might say it's beyond fixing) by using it in this way...
Maybe I read too much into it, but that's how it comes across...

Yes, great guy, wrong place.
The first time i heard the term 'infotainment' was on the simpsons when the school gave a show - very funny. bart 'this both sucks and blows'

Jesus Juice

I wanted this to be funny,I really did.

But I was as disappointed as a kid getting socks on Christmas,the writing in it is terrible.

994

johnfunk wrote: »

New Zealand gave us Flight of the Conchords granted with a little help of HBO.

Actually they were on BBC radio first.

johnfunk

994 wrote: »

Actually they were on BBC radio first.

Yes but before that they were performing in New Zealand

Elmo

I didn't watch the Savage Eye, I have given up on RTÉ Two. <<<< That is bad, ye all know it!

However <<<< always the however, I didn't want to even post in this thread, only I read one of the comments in the Lucy Kennedy/Brendan O'Connor thread that this was bad.

So what did I think. I didn't think it was ROFL, nor was it LOL. and TBH I think that RTÉ and the producers possible let the great "Aurthur Mathew" do want he wanted without much editing etc. because ".... from the creator of Fr. Ted comes....." but that is really up to AM to tell us about.

I thought the premise of the show was that Val was up for election in the By-election mode. Ardal O'Hanlon should know what it is like to be a TDs/Ministers son, because he actually is one, so hopeful he has some insight to the character and it can develop over the next few weeks.

Main problem with the show is that they have it on at 7:30 it is unlikely to be as hard hitting as Rasi Na Galimhe or The Running Mate produced by TG4 over the last year. (If you get a chance take a look they are in Irish but they have subtitles, the Running Mate is fairly bi-lingual).

Over all this IMO was nothing to talk about.

ayup

While i have'nt seen this yet i can't really comment on the various details e.t.c

Does anyone else think the subject matter is so lame

a gobeen politician down the sticks !

Come on have'nt Pat Short and Jon Kenny done that 12 years ago

I really like Savage Eye great original sketches no chance to get bored !

Mc savage is a genius imo.

corcaigh07

saw this on the RTE iplayer last night, very very poor stuff. I dont watch much TV these days and the reason is RTE have gone to the dogs altogether lately. where is our money going?

optogirl

The reason we see the same actors everywhere is that there are so few actors in the country who are even minimally competent. If you can learn lines, more or less, and turn up mostly sober, you have a good chance of getting the job.



The above statement is simpy wrong. Getting an audition in RTE is difficult, very difficult and there is no denying that the same pool of actors are used time and time again whether suitable for the roles or not.
There is an astounding wealth of acting talent in this country that continues to be untapped by RTE, The Abbey et al. Rarely has a visit to one of our smaller theatres, where actors are rarely even paid for their work, dissapointed. All too often RTE dissappoint - Val Falvey, Living With Lucy, Killinaskully, The Byrne Ultimatum, Stew, Fair City, The English Class etc etc etc.

Elmo

optogirl wrote: »

The above statement is simpy wrong. Getting an audition in RTE is difficult, very difficult and there is no denying that the same pool of actors are used time and time again whether suitable for the roles or not.
There is an astounding wealth of acting talent in this country that continues to be untapped by RTE, The Abbey et al. Rarely has a visit to one of our smaller theatres, where actors are rarely even paid for their work, dissapointed. All too often RTE dissappoint - Val Falvey, Living With Lucy, Killinaskully, The Byrne Ultimatum, Stew, Fair City, The English Class etc etc etc.

It is also about your name. Owen Roe is a good name IMO to have on your credits he seems competent and professional.

Do RTÉ cast independent productions?

snosae

I won't be back Ted