Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (RTE 1, Tuesday)
EastEnders (BBC 1, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday)
The format of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, RTE 1's current flagship quiz show hosted by Gay Byrne, is hardly groundbreaking. The quizmaster asks a question and the contestant answers it, hoping to get it right. Say, for example, the quizmaster asks "What is the home ground of Manchester United?". Four possible answers are displayed on the bottom of the screen, and the contestant, unless he/she is a total ***head, picks out "Old Trafford". Answering more questions correctly will eventually net the magic total of a million pounds. It's a simple, but winning, formula.
Modern Irish quiz shows, of which Who Wants to be a Millionaire? is the latest incarnation, have their roots in the "hedge quizzes" which emerged during the days of the Penal Laws. Catholic children, prevented from receiving any formal education under penalty of death, gathered surreptitiously in hedges around the countryside to answer questions on general knowledge from quizmasters who were, more often than not, on the run from the authorities and with a hefty price on their head. And this wasn't just because they were paedophiles.
It was a dangerous time to be asking questions. Even posing a simple query such as "What is the capital of Ireland?" could incur a 10-year prison sentence, while a controversial inquiry regarding religion or history could land one's head on a spike at the gates of a town where it ran the heavy risk of being pecked at by crows.
Quizmasters were not highly paid, and often had to fork out their own expenses if they had to ask questions in a faraway hedge which might require an overnight stay. Although laws on quiz shows were gradually relaxed in the 19th century, it wasn't until The Freeman's Journal introduced a lighthearted "teaser page" in 1905 that this kind of entertainment was considered respectable, and not the pastime of drunkards and prostitutes.
The first quiz show on Radio Eireann was There Are More Questions Than Answers in 1955. The flaw in the programme's format is only too evident in its title. Questions would be asked without the answers being known, thus causing confusion, anarchy and befuddlement in the studio. The problem was never properly solved, and the show eventually mutated into its current incarnation, the political discussion programme, Questions And Answers. The introduction of the electronic buzzer was to revolutionise the quiz show. No longer would a contestant have to put a hand up or shout out the answer in an obnoxious manner. He could merely press a buzzer, and when requested by the host, calmly proffer his answer in a clear and pleasant voice. Some quiz maestros never got the hang of the buzzer method. Rather like the silent movie star John Gilbert, who failed to make the transition to the talkies, a contestant unused to the new technology could almost overnight find himself yesterday's man.
Sean Bowyer-Burke, a quiz-answering legend in the pre-buzzer era on Radio Eireann's Round Ireland Quiz, failed to answer even one question after the implementation of the device he called "that damnable button". On one poignant, unforgettable occasion, he even got his own name wrong when asked to introduce himself to the listeners at home. Fifteen points away and he wasn't even off the starting blocks.
During the 1970s, Irish quiz shows entered new territory with BBC Northern Ireland's Castlereagh Challenge. Suspected terrorists were put under the spotlight (literally) by "Cracker" MacEntaggart, the RUC hard man who famously "never took no for an answer". Very few prizes were won on this show, but several contestants saw out the remainder of the century in a maze rather different from the crystal one made famous by Richard O'Brien on Channel 4.
It wouldn't be possible to write about the history of Irish television quiz shows without mentioning Quicksilver.
EastEnders on BBC1 is about a load of cockneys in the East End of London.
If that wasn't boring enough, my partner, the depressive nationalist poet Orla Ni Suibh, forces me to watch this rubbish three times a week. I would prefer to watch Channel 4 News, but Orla, difficult woman that she is, threatens to withhold sexual favours if I even go near the remote control. I presume this is a scenario that takes place in thousands of households around the country as the womenfolk exert their stranglehold on the nation's TV sets to get their weekly - or, as is now mostly the case, daily - soap "fix". As one of the "luvverble cockernees" from Albert Square would no doubt moan, "Gawd 'elp us . . ."
Arthur Mathews is co-writer of Father Ted (C4) and Big Train (BBC2) and writer of Hippies (BBC2)