In celebration of the day that’s in it, something from my past, and the past of a fair number of people from my generation. We were nearly the last to come of age when Irish culture was dominated by a combination of the Catholic Church and a particularly lugubrious nationalism. One of the early harbingers of its collapse was a television show, _Nighthawks_, which was broadcast on Ireland’s second station at 11pm a few nights a week, when the pious and well behaved had already gone to bed. The best bits of it were the occasional appearances by stand-up comic, Kevin McAleer, who stretched the conventions of Irish rural life, out and out and out, until they had become completely surreal and demented, all while staring at you with an expression of utter gormlessness, shot through with occasional bouts of craftiness. I mentioned this once before on Crooked Timber, and got an email out of the blue from McAleer, telling me that the tapes of _Nighthawks_ had long ago been erased, in the systematized auto-da-fe that was Irish television’s contribution to our cultural heritage (see also “Kieran”:https://crookedtimber.org/2007/04/26/childhood-horrors/ ). But in the interim, someone (McAleer himself??) seems to have found some bits and pieces, and put them together with footage of his live show on Youtube, which should give people the flavour of the thing. Here are two. I’d be interested to know how readers react to them – I think they’re inspired myself but you may have to have the right cultural context to really get them. I’d be interested to know how they travel.
{ 22 comments }
rf 03.18.12 at 3:04 am
I have vague memories of Nighthawks, and Kevin McAleer, though nothing I can put my finger on. Geographically I don’t know, but generationally I don’t think it travels. Personally I always found Irish comedians, even those sold as the best like Tommy Tiernan and Dylan Moran, to parochial, self-obsessed, and class conscious. (Although I accept that might be some manifestation of a deeper cynicism I’m overcome by at the moment) Father Ted, and most things Dermot Morgan had a hand in, were rare exceptions. Sinead O Connor did all the hard work politically as far as I can see.
I remember Dave Allen making some sort of impression. There was nothing, I can recall, even half as witty as the most mediocre production on English TV. Today I really like ‘Hardy Bucks’, but that’s also something very specific that won’t travel. Although I think I might be wrong on this, and I’ll keep an eye out and an open mind on MaCleer, all I remember were jokes about the immersion and uncomfortable sex, and although that might have little to do with the above, the same applies to a degree?
b.mit 03.18.12 at 4:49 am
I laughed more than a few times. There’s another one posted on YouTube where he does the Space Race that’s pretty good, too.
By the way, I watched Dave Allen while growing up as well, and I grew up in Canada. I remember it also leaving a positive impression. At the very least, it helped me realize that Irish people could themselves be funny, and not just the butt of jokes on The Two Ronnies.
mollymooly 03.18.12 at 10:21 am
The poor quality of Irish TV comedy is itself a running joke. Sketch shows occasionally work, sitcoms never ever, unless you include the first season of Bachelor’s Walk.
McAleer was doing the same material 10 years after Nighthawks, so ample room for later footage to survive.
The Wiping of RTE’s Tapes is another Uniquely Irish Fail that’s not uniquely Irish. All TV companies did it; not because the cost of new tape was so high, but because the cost of suitable storage for old tapes was. What stopped the practice was the development of the rerun.
Michael 03.18.12 at 12:16 pm
Speaking via Colorado and County Durham: it travels. We were rolling around with tears in our eyes.
P O'Neill 03.18.12 at 1:53 pm
A few weeks ago, BBC R5 Up All Night had someone on from Dublin to talk through the top 10 singles in Ireland (apparently there is still a chart). It’s a semi-regular feature on the show. In addition to the usual reality show dross, there were several comedy/novelty songs (off the top of my head, a Christy Moore, Mario Rosenstock, and a couple of others). It didn’t travel. It’s as as rf says above. The topical songs are driven by the strange Irish media cycle — saturated with newspapers, and the radio relying on talk & studio-bound shows which work around whatever “outrage” the Indo had that morning, then handing off to the same format on television in the evening. It all makes sense if you’re paying some attention to the cycle. Otherwise it’s completely insular and irrelevant.
bos 03.18.12 at 3:25 pm
I find the rf comments in 1 rather strange. Dylan Moran doesn’t travel? Given that he lives in Londaan he must travel. Even if it is only to train it up to Holyhead for to see his Mammy at Christmas.
Dylan Moran does travel. Black Books is a cult classic. He had speaking part in Tristam Shandy and in Shaun of the Dead. Hardly the cv of someone who does not travel. Black Books had many of the English comic actors of the day passing through.
Odd that anyone would think this comedy does not travel. This is the viewpoint of flyover America – the America that may determine the next POTUS. What is being described is a critique of an advert which was on UK TV. A style of advert that probably had its genesis somewhere on 5th avenue.That is a routine that would make sense in Kentucky or Idaho or Western Pennsylvania.
I’m fairly sure I once saw an Aussie comedian do something similar. Just because the comedian has a particular accent does not mean he is insular.
bert 03.18.12 at 4:39 pm
Dylan Moran’s standup and Black Books persona is a that of a highly intelligent utterly disillusioned talent pissing itself away. He’s like Brendan Behan or Dylan Thomas, a romantic screwup. (I’m sure the character he played in Sean of the Dead – a dorkish bore – wasn’t written with him in mind.)
The videos above and the cultural context Henry describes made me think of Father Ted instead. Am I right in thinking that the Irish embraced Father Ted rather like the English embraced Spinal Tap? It’s warm and affectionate, and the things it mocks needed a bit of mocking.
Alex 03.18.12 at 5:05 pm
The Wiping of RTE’s Tapes is another Uniquely Irish Fail that’s not uniquely Irish. All TV companies did it; not because the cost of new tape was so high, but because the cost of suitable storage for old tapes was. What stopped the practice was the development of the rerun.
The BBC supposedly did this as well.
mollymooly 03.18.12 at 7:10 pm
@bert #7:
I don’t think “embraced” is the right word for Father Ted’s Irish reception. That would suggest it was initially seen as foreign and later granted honorary Irish status. In fact it was considered Irish from the start; the writers and actors were all Irish, even if the producer and broadcaster were not.
I think Father Ted is no more insightful about Irish society and priests than the Far Side is about dogs and cows. It’s a vehicle for absurdity, not satire.
bert 03.18.12 at 7:38 pm
I would have thought its core premise – that religion is so obviously hollow that not even its core practitioners can bring themselves to buy into it – would have some satirical bite. And I’d also have thought that the defenders of religion would have responded by pointing up the fact that it was being beamed in from abroad.
I think I’m glad that it didn’t become a target and that it was embraced as Irish, for lack of a better word. But you suggest that may be because people missed the point.
rf 03.18.12 at 10:07 pm
Bos
I wrote up a justification for my remark about Dylan Moran but it became a long winded and bitter rant, so instead we may as well just agree to disagree. Just to add one thing however, the idea that his routine might travel, (i.e that he can find a whole heap of people in London to listen to his inane drivel), doesn’t negate the fact that he’s part of a generation of Irish comics drawn largely from the same class, working the same clubs and holding roughly the same political positions, that have carved out careers by giving performances and creating personas more similar to each-other than different, whether given in Galway, London or Dubai. In other words they have become a clique immersed in a total culture, or a cult to be blunt, every bit as narrow in outlook as Bernard Manning. And throw in the fact that none of them have shown any willingness to approach their careers in the same manner that someone like Sinead O Connor did, be willing to be ridiculed and caricatured for consistently attacking institutions and individuals that deserved to be attacked, but instead sell modern updates on age old romantic clichés of ‘Irishness’ for homesick expats, and P O Neill’s claim of irrelevance appears apt. (Damn this became that off topic, bitter rant again, and nothing to do directly with Kevin MaCleer, of who I’m agnostic, so I’ll leave it there)
Akshay 03.18.12 at 10:20 pm
Well, it didn’t travel to me. I can sort of make out he is mocking certain mannerisms, but I am not acquainted with those mannerisms. After making a mild effort to parse the accent, it feels like a slow, and repetitive, and odd, and slow…, and repetitive…, and odd way to tell a story which is of little interest. Come to think of it, that might be the joke.
It reminds me a lot of certain Dutch humour which leaves me stone-faced, but my native compatriots in tears. Perhaps I lack fond childhood memories of the people being mocked? (I will leave comparisons to German humour to native speakers of German)
Or perhaps its just taste: I guess I prefer humour which does not depend too much on an extreme delivery or (culturally specific) mannerisms. I also never enjoyed Droopy the dog, of whom this guy reminds me.
Or perhaps he is trying to use absurdist techniques of annoying repetition of trivial banter to expose the vast existential Void gaping beneath rural Ireland. The Void might not be funny, but fear of it could provoke nervous laughter.
Or perhaps, as this head-scratching and over-analysis reveals, I really did not get the joke.
Phil 03.18.12 at 10:43 pm
I’m not sure how well McAleer’s stuff travels between media. I saw him do the “slideshow” part of the routine on TV (Saturday Live), many years ago, & thought it was highly original, very clever & hilariously funny; if I’d seen him do it live I would have been paralytic with laughter. Seeing it now, in a little window on my screen, with something more grabby or at least less patience-taxing only a click away, it only raised a smile.
Tell you what though, Graham Linehan knows that act – and Ardal O’Hanlon practically owes him royalties.
ajay 03.19.12 at 9:38 am
the systematized auto-da-fe that was Irish television’s contribution to our cultural heritage (see also Kieran)
Poor old Kieran.
ajay 03.19.12 at 9:39 am
Personally I always found Irish comedians, even those sold as the best like Tommy Tiernan and Dylan Moran, to parochial, self-obsessed, and class conscious. (Although I accept that might be some manifestation of a deeper cynicism I’m overcome by at the moment) Father Ted, and most things Dermot Morgan had a hand in, were rare exceptions. Sinead O Connor did all the hard work politically as far as I can see.
Wait, Sinead O’Connor was a comedian? You realise we’ve all been trying to take her act seriously for the last 25 years?
bos 03.19.12 at 10:57 am
@rf
DMoran’s comedy may be parochial/etc but it has traveled. DMorgan on the other hand has not traveled. Fr Ted did travel, but that is because of Linehan and Matthews, not Dermot. I feel you are giving too much credit to DMorgan for Fr Ted.
Why criticise DMoran for something he hasn’t done, rather than for what he has done? If you look at Seinfeld, you could criticise it for being insular, parochial, self-obsessed. Doesn’t stop it being successful at being funny.
And I do think the Kevin McAleer routine is funny. I think it needs time for the rhythm to settle in. Kind of harks back to a kinder gentler time when we had more time, and a click was a noise not a consumer decision.
rf 03.19.12 at 12:15 pm
“Wait, Sinead O’Connor was a comedian?”
The humour obviously doesnt travel, I guess
bos
You’re right, to each their own
Matt 03.19.12 at 4:23 pm
It doesn’t particularly work for me either. Like Askhay, I might be missing the context that makes it funny. The mannerisms(?), but not the accent, reminds me of how some older relatives talk, I could just go see my uncle instead. I do like Father Ted though, so…I also think Phil might be onto something. It’s got a bit of a slow pay-off and it’s pretty easy, especially on Youtube, to click away to something that’s funnier faster. It might be a lot better if it’s being watched in a situation where you can’t get away.
I’m a little surprised by the dislike for Dylan Moran. Blacks Books is terrific and his stand-up has some great bits as well. It seems a little unfair to call a comedian out for being self-obsessed and class conscious–isn’t that the whole idea? I can’t think of a comedian who couldn’t be described that way (Larry David? Louis CK? Rodney Dangerfield?).
How do people feel about Des Bishop?
rf 03.19.12 at 7:40 pm
“It seems a little unfair to call a comedian out for being self-obsessed and class conscious”
Yeah that was unfair. The point I was trying to make was that we don’t seem to produce comedians that have anything significant to say about the world they inhabit, just a carefully practised routine that could be given anywhere, at any time by anyone. (Personally I’m not a huge fan of Moran’s comedy on its merits, but bos is right about my romanticisation of Dermot Morgan, who I didn’t grow up with but only knew from Father Ted)
Bishop always struck me as less conservative than his peers and genuinely curious about the country. I remember a bit he did on working for minimum wage on the late shift in a take away in Waterford at a time I was living and working there, and he caught the sense of pissed up entitlement perfectly. I never found his jokes particularly funny, but he’s definitely taken a lot of risks with his career.
I’m going to have to admit to liking the ‘work’ of David MacSavage, particularly when it was little more than crudely abusing people on Grafton Street. That, unfortunately, appears to be my level.
Matt 03.19.12 at 10:18 pm
Hmm…Fair enough then, RF, though I’m not sure too many comedians elsewhere have amazing insights into the world either. If it makes me chuckle, that’s normally enough for the likes of me.
As for Bishop, I think I’d agree that he can be very interesting without necessarily being funny. There are some funny bits in his stand-up–the one about modh coinniollach warms my former-linguist’s heart–but it often falls a little flat for me. On the other hand, his on-location stuff, for want of a better term, like learning Irish or working nights at Abrakebabra is definitely unique and interesting to watch. It’s a little odd to see it presented as a comedy act, since most of it’s not actually that funny (at least for me). It seems more like a documentary-ish thing with a humorous host; the parts that he presents in front of an audience seem like they could easily be studio interviews or narration.
I was unfamiliar with David MacSavage, but just spent more time than I should have on youtube, so thanks for that :-)
Mrs Tilton 03.20.12 at 2:38 pm
Surely A Scare at Bedtime is one of those cross-cultural universals, instantly understood and appreciated by anybody who watches it?
Quilletante 03.22.12 at 2:29 pm
As a middle-aged Irish-American, I thought the MaCleer tapes were slyly hilarious. And I remember those ads from my American childhood, where the company rep tries to make the housewife switch back to the old brand she had been using- as someone pointed most ads in Ireland and America all did derive at that time from Madison Avenue formulae. The send-up of the “country” accents was priceless as well. Reminds me of some cousins in Tipperary. Sharp as tacks, but I can only understand what they are saying with a five-second delay to process.
As an adopted Southerner, I appreciate the slow build-up of the jokes. It’s not a rat-a-tat delivery, but that helps build the uproarious mood more solidly, if that makes sense? . I was in tears laughing.
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