RADIO REVIEW:THE TABLOID headline might have read: "Well, Holy God! Miley Byrne is an atheist." Mick Lally and Mary McEvoy were on Miriam Meets. . . (RTÉ Radio One, Saturdays) to discuss the perils of fame, religion, a play they're doing at the Tivoli, and life since Glenroe. In that show, as husband-and-wife Biddy and Miley, they represented a kind of rural Ireland idyll. Today, Lally is an atheist and McEvoy is a Buddhist. Welcome to Ireland, 2010.
Both have turned their backs on Rome. McEvoy has been a Buddhist for more than 20 years. “I fell out of love with Catholicism because I am an unreconstructed feminist,” she told Miriam O’Callaghan.
Lally brought an accidental agricultural spin to his position: “I think we just die and we’re vegetables, we decompose, that’s it. I don’t know why it is that mankind has elevated it to this other spiritual life . . . I take no heed of any of religion. I classify myself as an atheist. I think it’s all a load of nonsense.
“They tried to make a priest out of me and failed miserably . . . All this talk about a wonderful God and how he made all men equal: he didn’t make people equal. Look at the poor people in Haiti. What is equal about them and the savagery that was visited upon them?”
Miley was an innocent and gormless character. Lally, fierce and funny, appears totally comfortable in his skin. On radio, you get that familiar voiceover voice, born of the rocky soil of Co Mayo.
In person, he is one of the few Irish men who can wear denim both above and below the waist. (Just so you know . . .) He and his most famous alter ego couldn’t be less alike.
Brenda Donohue and Derek Mooney were having a kerfuffle over his cardigan on Mooney(RTÉ Radio One, weekdays). "I just thought it aged you a bit, pet," Donohue said on Wednesday. Talking about dentists, she added, "Derek, you've lovely teeth, I've never noticed your teeth before."
Mooney is easing into cosy mediocrity even by mid-afternoon radio standards. It recently devoted an entire show to the Eurosong.
Donohue and Mooney are too similar, and would perform better apart. They still need to be separated, like that terrible twosome at the back of the class armed and dangerous with a leaky pen.
I suggest putting the erudite Valerie Cox on Mooney – her voice is like melted butter on a warm scone – and the chuckle-happy, guffawing Brenda Donohue on Today With Pat Kenny. Shake 'em up, like.
Neither would probably like that, but Mooney needs a reporter that pushes and challenges him, and not just about his cardigans.
He could also take a leaf out of another man's book. Weekend Wogan(BBC Radio 2, Sundays), a mid-morning musical chat show with a live studio audience, is Terry Wogan's new weekly gig. His BBC Radio 2 daily show Wake Up to Woganended its run in December with eight million listeners – including Queen Elizabeth – which made him the most popular radio broadcaster in Britain.
His Irishman-abroad blarney is still going strong, except now you can hear the audience laugh. And they do. “I always feel like I should leave now while I’m ahead,” he said, as soon as he started the show.
Guests seem to relish his gentle mockery. Introducing actor Jonathan Pryce, he said, "He appeared in all three Pirates of the Caribbeanmovies as Keira Knightley's father. Oh, I thought he was playing the octopus. He's also had the most sought-after role of a Bond villain. He's a nasty piece of work. Refrain from booing when he comes out."
When Pryce finally took to the stage, Wogan told him, “You just came on and milked the audience for all the applause you could get and ignored my hand in friendship . . . You’re normally tidily turned out. You’re a bit like an unmade bed this morning.”
But then he asks all the right questions, as he did when he asked how Pryce can do a "definitive" version of Hamlet when Lawrence Olivier and John Gielgud have owned the role. When Pryce made a segue from playing a media-mogul Bond villain to Rupert Murdoch, Wogan replied, "Well, that's the end of our good reviews in The Timesand The Sun, The News of the World. . ."
He kept nattering as Carly Simon was preparing to sing. She told him, “I can’t hear a word you say, I’m trusting you.”
Wogan replied, innocently, “Many a woman’s made that mistake.”
He then complained about having to get out of bed on a Sunday. We don’t have to and, as always, Wogan is worth not getting out of bed for.
Simon sang You're So Vain. Despite, or maybe because of, his success, he is one Irish broadcaster you couldn't accuse of that.
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