Liveline: Thread with no name, Host with no shame

Did he really say “De Yew-Crane Lahn is open now”?

The link to the first article (it was published in The Star) isn’t working anymore - but I’ve copied and pasted this from an old thread:

Miriam O’Callaghan won’t let comic David McSavage get skit off

COMEDIAN David McSavage was stopped in his tracks Friday when he attempted to poke fun at RTE broadcaster Joe Duffy.

The funnyman, who regularly pokes fun at the Liveline presenter on his TV show The Savage Eye, attempted to do the same during a chat with Miriam O’Callaghan, who was covering for John Murray on RTE Radio 1 yesterday morning.

But as soon as he attempted to mimic the station stalwart, O’Callaghan cut in, to put a stop to his antics, saying: “Joe Doesn’t like that. We’re not going there ok!”

Duffy is frequently lampooned on the satirical TV programme, in which McSavage portrays him as a fetish garment clad sado-masochist who enjoys urging his to to express excess misery as he “empathizes” verbally and plays with his nipple clamps.

Duffy has since questioned viewership figures for The Savage Eye on his daily radio show and had questioned whether it is “blasphemous” on his Sunday afternoon religious affairs TV show Spirit Level.

McSavage also found himself in a war of words with RTE after his stand-up routine was dropped at the last minute from Brendan O’Connor’s Saturday Night chat show last year.

At the time, a spokeswoman for the show has insisted that McSavage’s act was binned because it “wasn’t up to scratch.”

But McSavage suggested that the show’s top brass may have reacted badly to some jokes about Liveline host Joe Duffy.

However, O’Callaghan quickly poured water over his attempts to mock Duffy during a chat yesterday, to which McSavage protested: “Your audience are all at home going, ‘Please go there’.”

At another point , McSavage also appeared keen to highlight John Murray’s absence from the show, despite RTEís recent confirmation that he is currently on certified sick leave .

“I only found out two days ago, that I was going to be on your show, or on John’s Show. How is he?” he said to Miriam, before continuing on.

McSavage also spoke about appearing in the film Calvary alongside Brendan Gleeson and revealed that he is set to play a bit part in Our Robot Overlords, a film staring Sir Ben Kinsley and Gillian Anderson.

“It said in the script that the character has a roman nose, so that’s the only reason I got the part!” he joked.

But he was serious when it came to his acting skills, adding: “I think I’m a good actor as long as I’m cast in something that’s similar to my personality.”

also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Duffy

Lampooning of Duffy on The Savage Eye

Duffy is frequently lampooned at length on the satirical TV programme The Savage Eye. It portrays him as a fetish garment clad sado-masochist who derives perverse pleasure by urging his call-in radio listeners in a strong working class Dublin accent, to express excesses of degradation and misery as he "empathizes" verbally and plays with his nipple clamps. Duffy has since questioned viewership figures for The Savage Eye on his daily radio show and had questioned whether it is "blasphemous" on his Sunday afternoon religious affairs TV show Spirit Level.

Re. the person of small stature, Duffy complained about his fee (THE FOCKING CHEEK AND IRONY!)that it was an English rather than an Irish actor employed and as we were in the recession that an Irish actor should have been employed. Irish actors, good, English actors bad.....you know like Irish Buke Printers Bad, German Buke Printers very good for de profits and dat. Like I said, hypocrite.

also:

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/did-you-hear-the-one-about-joe-duffy-and-the-bold-tv-comedian-26784395.html

Did you hear the one about Joe Duffy and the bold TV comedian?

Darragh McManus

October 22 2011 5:00 AM

Isn't life funny? Funny in the laughing sense, and the ironic sense. Joe Duffy's outburst on TV3 this week, about his comic portrayal by David McSavage, was funny -- mostly in the ironic sense.

Here we had the working-class hero turned pillar of the establishment lambasting his satirical mauling by the scion of a political dynasty turned bad boy. By rights it should have been the other way around.

The Victorians coined a term, "épater la bourgeoisie": to shock the middle classes by being wilfully outrageous or obnoxious, just for the hell of it. The Decadents did it, Oscar Wilde, Salvador Dali.

David McSavage does it through his Savage Eye TV show, and does it very well. So well, in fact, that Joe went ballistic while hawking his new book on MidWeek with Colette Fitzpatrick.

The programme depicted Duffy as a masochistic weirdo who dresses in leather, wears a dog collar and nipple clamps, and gets uncontrollably aroused by his fetish for listeners' tales of misery. A dwarf performs certain outré sexual acts on the presenter while he's live on air. It was pretty amusing, although undeniably provocative.

And Joe didn't like it, telling MidWeek: "I didn't think it was funny, I thought it was tasteless, and insulting to the people who pay David McSavage's and the dwarf's fee. They can portray me as a dope, a fool, an idiot: that's fine.

"But to portray me as a sexual pervert who abuses his listeners and is sexually abused by someone while he's on air. . . It probably says more about David McSavage and the people who commissioned the programme than it does about me."

The irony is that, in a parallel universe, it could have been Duffy shocking respectable society, and McSavage on the receiving end.

The Liveline host proudly proclaims his humble origins and plays up his "man of the people" image: who better to subvert the norm and rattle the cages of prissy Middle Ireland?

McSavage, meanwhile, was born David Andrews, son of the patrician David Sr, a former Fianna Fáil minister. His brother is a politician, as is a cousin; he's even related to Ryan Tubridy, surely the definition of Irish Establishment. What better target for a satirical kicking?

Somehow, somewhere, the lines got crossed, by fate or choice. Joe became more bourgeois than the bourgeoisie, though he retained the salt-of-the-earth accent; David changed his name, rejected his heritage and transformed himself into one of the most transgressive, offensive comedians Ireland has ever seen. He is undeniably funny, though, as well as clever and daring. So was Duffy right to strike back -- or should he launch a nationwide search for his missing sense of humour?

On a broader level, it's good that people like McSavage are around to annoy and shock us -- to "épater la bourgeoisie".

It's healthy for society to get outraged from time to time, and it's healthy that rich, famous people like Duffy are satirised. However, on the personal level, it's natural for any individual to get upset if they're the brunt of the joke.

Duffy may be completely humourless, we don't know. But he'd be a robot if he didn't cringe at seeing his fictional alter-ego doing things with choke-leads and dwarves that would embarrass a dominatrix in the sleaziest brothel in Soho.

It's easy for us to say: Come on, it's just a bit of a laugh. Maybe not so easy to laugh at it yourself.

Most people mocked on TV comedies claim they have no problem with it, and in fact found it hilarious. I wonder. Perhaps Joe Duffy is speaking a wider truth than we think.

It never ceases to amaze me that despite being told straight out that his phraseology of "where are you from originally" etc. was racist that he continues to use it.