Present Tense Shane HegartyRTÉ radio has been running a series of comedy sketches on Marty Whelan's 2FM breakfast show, and again on Derek Mooney's Radio 1 show. The sketches go by the title Nob Nation. The subtlety of that pun should give you a good hint as to their effectiveness.
Each sketch comprises topical mimicry in search of a joke. The impressions are strong, but rattle about for a few minutes in the hope of stumbling upon even a trace amount of humour, until they gradually give up before the punchline.
It is common for the DJ to dutifully treat them as comedy gold, mined from the purest vein. This is a standard reaction. On Today FM's The Last Word, presenter Matt Cooper greets comedy sketches with a gasping mirth, as if a "wipe-the-tears-from-my-eyes" routine will retrospectively trick the listeners into thinking the sketch was actually funny.
The most impressive bit of mimicry on Nob Nation, though, is how much it sounds like Gift Grub. That's because it is voiced by Oliver Callan, who once pitched in on Gift Grub until a falling out with Mario Rosenstock ended with the lawyers. But, whether it's his or not, Callan has doggedly held onto the formula.
But where's the subversion? Where's the satire? To be fair to Rosenstock, he does not claim to be a satirist as such, but someone who grabs characters to populate a comedy universe. But RTÉ's shameless imitation proves that his success has had the side effect of dragging political satire back half a century. At first, you might equate Gift Grub with the radio impressionists of the 1950s, who respectfully mimicked the great and good, but often sought approval from their "victims" before daring to do so. Actually, Gift Grub - and now Nob Nation - have taken things further. They are venturing into a new place. This is anti-satire, in which the lampooning of politicians actually makes them more loveable. In this age of cynicism that's subversive.
But we don't need irony. We need wounding, vital, laugh-because-you're-angry satire. Instead, we've entered a general election year at a time when it's drying up here.
While we face this famine, in the US and Britain comedians enjoy a feast. The US has Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and the unexpected chronicle of its age that is South Park. Meanwhile, Britain revels in an era of satire not seen since the 1980s. Channel 4 now seems to spend half its budget on dramas in which the Labour government is a central character. Tony Blair must be challenging Winston Churchill's lengthy reign as most "fictionalised" British PM. Across the channels, the BBC recently ran The Thick of It, a brilliant and unnerving update of Yes Minister. It is now running the drama series Party Animals (This Life for policy wonks. See TVReview). Meanwhile, its radio continues to house fine comedy, while acting as a nursery for BBC television. And Ireland? It gets Nob Nation. Honestly, if they only changed its name it would already be 75 per cent funnier.
This country has a well-documented rocky history when it comes to political satire. Its growth has been stunted by a claustrophobic political culture, a national broadcaster chaperoned by government, the stink of failed comedies and a limited pool of talent. It's meant that the arrival of Scrap Saturday has always appeared something of a fluke. But there are other reasons. Firstly, we're better off, cosy and generally happy - hardly fertile ground for bitter commentary. And secondly the Haughey era raised the bar so high that the present Government's badness, stupidity and arrogance rarely twitches the needle on the nation's Gubu scale. Bertie's career appears to have reached a point at which he could boil a kitten live on television, safe in the knowledge that if he wobbles his chin at Bryan Dobson, while looking contrite yet wounded, then he's guaranteed an extra five points in the polls.
Promisingly, RTÉ confirms it has plans for pre-election satire. The details remain secret, although it's unlikely to be another crack at X-it Poll, its unsuccessful adaptation of the Daily Show format. But in this year of all years, something is needed. Still, it's a shame that we must find ourselves waiting impatiently.
It's now been a few years since Stuart Carolan's Navan Man stumbled upon some fine satire. Other than that, we've had Joe Taylor and Malcolm Douglas's selected reading of the tribunal records, which, although biting, infers that Irish politics is now somehow beyond parody; that the grotesque reality cannot be trumped by any satire that might be hacked from it.
But Irish politics and politicians are not beyond parody, nor immune to satire. That's obvious on some of the blogs online and on the pages of The Phoenix, but not from what comes out of our radio and television. After 10 years of power, this Government, the Opposition, the media and the entire system are fat, sluggish targets. They are grouse, standing in an open field. But there are no hunters in sight.