The Minister for Hardship is back. Eamon Morrissey talks to Brian Boyd about the genius of 'Hall's Pictorial Weekly', which is now available on DVD
'I was absolutely dreading it," says actor Eamon Morrissey of the newly released Hall's Pictorial Weekly DVD. "It was about the politics of the day and I was afraid it would show its age and all the references would have to be explained to today's audience. I've seen bits of the show floating around over the years, but this full-length DVD was a different matter. I think my fear stemmed from the fact that I knew the conditions the programme was made under - we had to rehearse it and film it all in the same day."
Having had a leisurely look at the DVD, Morrissey pronounces himself surprised and relieved at how the material still stands up - "there's some judicious and careful editing" - and observes, wryly, how "the sacred cows of church and State back then were a lot more sacred than they are now".
Written by the show's presenter, Frank Hall, and featuring Morrissey, Frank Kelly, Paul Murphy and Pat Daly, Hall's Pictorial Weekly ran from 1970 to 1982 - a time of huge social and political change - and had a level of penetrative satire that was not to be matched by the national broadcaster until Scrap Saturday in the 1990s.
"It really seemed to become part of some national folk culture," says Morrissey. "A lot of the show's catchphrases entered the lexicon, and to this day you will still hear people talking about 'Ballymagash-style politics' [in reference to the show's parodying of parish-pump politics] and still hear people talking fondly about the show and its main characters."
Such was the impact of the show that the historian, John A. Murphy, once stated that by mercilessly lampooning the mid-1970s Fine Gael/Labour coalition, the show contributed to its 1977 general election defeat.
The show grew out of Newsbeat, a quirky look at stories from the provincial press presented by Frank Hall.
"I think the idea of the show was to act as a sop to people outside Dublin, but when it became Hall's Pictorial Weekly it became more comedy and satire," says Morrissey. "It was never about exposing the soft underbelly of Irish society, it was about poking fun at whatever happened in the news, with maybe an emphasis on the behaviour of county managers. I had come from a topical revue background, so it was more that than anything else. But you have to remember the different conditions back then, the different sense of church/State and authority that existed. I suppose in one sense it made it easier for us because so much wasn't talked about then."
Morrissey positions the show as the comedic wing of The Late Late Show.
"While the Late Late was having discussions about the changes in Irish society, we were satirising them," he says. "We were lucky in that we were dealing with the first generation of Irish politicians who were having to get used to the medium of television. It was a more innocent age. Now it's different, they're polished, but we could get a lot out of those local politician types who were only furthering their own career."
From the Ballymagash Urban District Councillors to the Minister for Hardship and Larry O'Hooligan, the show's characters and catchphrases transfixed the country.
"It actually had a terrible effect on us," Morrissey says. "The level of recognition was incredible - it seemed like everyone in the country watched it. And what always surprised me was the pan-generational appeal of the show. But the recognition anywhere we went was a terrible imposition on us. You know, it's one thing if you're rich and famous, but if you work for RTÉ you only get the famous bit."
There was suspicion that pressures were exerted by church/State representatives to "tone the satire down", but Morrissey remains unaware of any interference.
"It never happened to my knowledge," he says. "I know one or two people weren't happy with the show, but at studio-floor level it was never an issue. It was a great advantage for us that we came out of the features department at RTÉ and not the light entertainment department, but I think too much has been made of that 'interference' argument. What did strike me, though, was that when we put on a live stage tour of the show, people would come up to Frank Hall after the show and treat him almost like an ombudsman-type figure - that he had the power to right wrongs. That's how the show was perceived by its audience."
It is acknowledged that the show lost a bit of its snap, crackle and pop with the 1977 election of a Fianna Fáil (FF) government. Its writer, Hall, was broadly sympathetic to FF, but for Morrissey the change was more about the nature of the new government.
"The coalition were always arguing in public; the new government didn't," he says. "And they were very hard to get a handle on. I remember studying hours and hours of video footage of [then minister] Gene Fitzgerald, but whenever I did a caricature of him it was always 'Gene who?' - and also that government had a bit of a honeymoon period, which didn't help us."
There was also a more general problem, which was to do with the show's success - politicians didn't feel they'd arrived until they had been "done" on Hall's Pictorial Weekly. It's the same reason why ITV's Spitting Image was taken off the air years later in Britain: politicians were actively canvassing to be portrayed on the programme.
"You don't get the same viewing figures for television programmes now that we did then," says Morrissey. "I remember once being down the country on a theatre run and going in to a pub to watch the show one night - and every single person was watching it."
Despite the abundance of material on offer, Morrissey doesn't feel Hall's Pictorial Weekly would fare as well in today's political climate. "The language has changed, you can get away with much more these days, whereas we had to hint at things. People think that with all the tribunals and everything that we would have a field day now, but that's missing the point, I think. What can you say about the tribunals? That people cre crooked. You need more than that for satire."
The Very Best Of Hall's Pictorial Weekly is available now on DVD