Knaves and queens

TV REVIEW:  Battle of the Sexes, RTÉ1, Sunday; The Queen, Channel 4, Monday; The Frontline, RTÉ1, Monday; This Is . . . Bertie Ahern; TV3, Thursday

‘FORTY PER CENT of Sinn Féin supporters are extremely satisfied with their sex lives – as are 15 per cent of the Greens.” This vaguely amusing little anecdote came courtesy of the second and concluding part of

Battle of the Sexes

, an apparently “groundbreaking” series from the national broadcaster, which consisted of two studio debates, one hosted by Miriam O’Callaghan, the other by Ray D’Arcy, which attempted (with the assistance of a sheaf of unarguable graphics and a national survey of 1,000 respondents) to explore “the state of the modern Irish man and the modern Irish woman, and their relationships with one another”. Right so, Mary.

Part two of this rather anodyne pantomime, featuring the lads, was hosted by the benevolent Mr D’Arcy and featured 15 or so sterling examples of voluble Irish manhood, variously sprawled and perched over a shiny chrome-and-black set (which may have been designed to enhance the cutting-edge debate, but which, being reminiscent of the packaging of a gift set of cheap aftershave, rather underscored the futility of the enterprise).

In these mean and unpredictable years, as the decade closes around us like a noose, the phrase “masculinity in crisis” bleats ever more insistently over the boom’s bloated corpse. “I’m a man and I don’t know who I am” was the subliminal chorus murmuring away behind the studio debate, which postulated, not unreasonably, that Irish society has changed pretty fundamentally and that traditional gender roles have flown out the Velux windows, along with antimacassars and Green Shield stamp books.

I’m sure this gender shock is terribly fascinating, but good God, masculinity in crisis has never looked so dull. As the debate rolled on, with all the pizzazz of a V-neck jumper over a paunch, and the studio guests – “a mix of fresh, incisive commentators and ordinary people from around the country”, I’ll have you know – whacked on about how women are diminishing their fragile equilibrium, I was finding it difficult to stay awake. “We have to perform our magic with the lights off because you’re having a fat day. Modern women are barely civil to each other – they come out looking like a Spanish transvestite,” chirped some jumped-up fool on the VTR as he poked a little odious fun at the ladies, with a quasi-stand-up routine that would have seen him pelted with unfertilised ovum had he been within reach of a live female population.

The tongue-in-cheek and foot-in-mouth view of women continued throughout the tedious hour with side-splitting portrayals of over made-up ladies presiding over their biological clocks like demented horologists, demanding a bank statement before they’d get into the scratcher, or coming on so sexually voracious that they were in danger of wearing out the critical male appendage. Oh, such deftness of wit, such abundance of originality – I nearly gagged on my Playtex. Crisis, what crisis? The “submissive nurturer” and the “dominant provider” seem well ensconced in our rainy new century, and the fatuous nature of this limp dabate ain’t going to shift any perceptions. 73 per cent of those surveyed believed that “women are better at housework”. Oh, and a little under half sang the praises of monogamy – the other half were keeping schtum.

MAINTAINING THE status quo was also the order of the day in a series of five dramas exploring pivotal events in the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, which was ushered on to the screen this week courtesy of clever old Channel 4, the station that prides itself on its intellectual rigour and is staffed by deadly serious TV executives who all gather in the staff canteen to eat ironic-detachment sandwiches. I usually hide under the couch when the British monarchy is being hauled across the cooling embers of television drama. I feel a little overloaded in the monarch-as-psychological-enigma department. Many, many tiara-heavy actors and actresses with tartan kilts and bespoke accents have brought their sensitive interpretations of the troubled institution/woman/man to the table, and really, once you’ve seen Helen Mirren as the queen, peering into the middle distance in her bifocals, I figure you’ve seen enough.

Anyway, the smarts at Channel 4 have found a new way of getting the queen on the box and grabbing our royal attentions. This week-long series The Queen(let's not pull any punches with the title) which featured five twin-set-wearing actresses in various states of maturity, tied its trough to the political and social upheavals which happened in Britain while the queen was under her throne looking for her pearls and putting the frighteners on a couple of mice. Not that daft an interpretation on the basis of episode two, which was set in the early 1970s and featured a pursed and tightened Samantha Bond as HRH, desperately trying to squeeze a couple of crinkled tears out of the corner of her turquoise eyelids and a couple more million quid out of the civil list. This wanton avarice against a background of civil unrest, a deepening recession, industrial action and an unprecedented number of the population losing faith and expressing their disenchantment with an institution that hitherto had been central to their idea of nation . . . Hang on a minute . . . we are talking about The Queen, aren't we, and not another rambunctious edition of Frontline?

Despite some vaguely interesting archive from the period, including Prince Philip, with all the savvy of a stuffed corgi, announcing on US television that he was becoming so broke he might have to downsize, flog a yacht and give up polo, and nostalgically frayed footage of the first time a television crew was allowed inside access to the royals – oh, and an interview with Dennis Skinner MP and his sideburns (“Those who live by the camera can fall flat on their faces,” he warned unconvincingly) – this was a bit of a wearisome canter around the ring. Like macramé, sugarcraft and UFOs, you’re either interested in royalty or you are most decisively not. Personally, I’d rather perform a little taxidermy on the corgi fleet.

SO, BACK TO the 85 per cent of Greens who, according to the poll conducted for RTÉ's Battle of the Sexes, are not "extremely happy" with their sex lives (as opposed to the myriad Sinn Féiners hopping merrily around the countryside and the shopping centres of Newry like bearded spring bunnies). This week's Frontline(which, like RTÉ's superb Prime Time, is becoming unmissable for its forensic examination of the state we're in) dealt with the flooding crisis ribboning the country and outlined, in competing stories of hardship, its devastating effects on homes and communities. Watching Minister for the Environment John Gormley listing in his chair as woe upon woe seeped from a justifiably angry audience, one was tempted to wonder, their personal lives aside, whether those in the Green Party, up to their wellies in silt and fecund incinerators, have anything much to get excited about at all on these sopping-wet, nervy old days.

Bertie's uncertainty principle: A vaguely entertaining tête à tête with the former taoiseach

"Has it been worth it all? I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure." Well, well, buoyant Bertie seems to have lost some of his bounce. Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, a man who seems a little adrift since relinquishing the exhaustion of office, was the first guest of journalist Ursula Halligan in her new series This Is . . .which sees the politely insistent and ever so well-dressed Ms Halligan get up close and personal with prominent people.

Flagged as his most personally frank television interview to date, the screen-filling Bertie (warily smiling eyes, tightened jaw, giddy eyebrows), appeared to be glowing in the undivided attention of the lens. He seemed chuffed to chat about all manner of things with the quiet, delicately intrusive Halligan.

From his mother’s home baking to his passion for Drumcondra, his mates, his footie, his chagrin with some unnamed former colleagues (who were portrayed as hissing behind his sturdy back like asps in a basket), to the break-up of his marriage and his long relationship with his former partner Celia Larkin.

“Why did your relationship with Celia Larkin finish?” murmured Halligan gracefully.

“I’m not really sure, to be honest with you,” said Bertie, looking genuinely perplexed.

“You once said that Ben, your cat, knew more about what was going on in your head than your ministerial colleagues,” proffered Halligan later. Maybe for a former Minister of Finance who didn’t have a bank account, that’s not so weird.

Halligan is a clever interviewer: non-confrontational, polite and serene, but whether she drew the somewhat inscrutable (or just plain ordinary) Bertie out or not, we’ll never know.

“Would you do it all again?”

“I’m not sure, I’m not sure, I’m not sure.”

A wounded man or a bloke plugging his autobiography? “I’m not sure, I’m not sure, I’m not sure.”