RadioReview: John Kelly (The Mystery Train, RTÉ Radio 1) bowed out this week with good grace, some humour and a playlist that felt like a cross between a hip wake and a no-hard-feelings break-up. He didn't even make too many cheesy references to the train pulling out of the station for the last time - though it did on Thursday and it's a programme that will be missed.
Audience-wise, it never fully recovered after the move to a later time slot, but there's no doubting Kelly's sometimes eccentric, always eclectic music mix had a devoted following. And not just because his programme's style and content isn't replicated anywhere else - a true radio original is a rare thing. His themed night on Wednesday was great fun, a programme full of booze songs of the "there's a tear in my eye because I'm crying for you, dear" variety. The show's cancellation leaves a big hole in RTÉ Radio 1's evening schedule, but if it is filled with quality, challenging talk radio - and that is what should have been there in the first place - and Kelly's new weekday afternoon show on RTÉ Lyric FM in the autumn is as perfectly formed as The Mystery Train, then everyone should be happy.
Psychologist Tony Humphreys sent two couples home much happier after six weeks' worth of therapy in a powerful radio series, Relationship, Relationship, Relationship (RTÉ Radio 1, Wednesday). In the series, produced with sensitive restraint by Jacqui Corcoran, two couples agreed to embark on what turned out to be searingly honest therapy sessions. It was interesting for many reasons, not least because we usually only hear about relationships and marriage in terms of the bonkers costs of weddings and divorces and nothing of any depth about what happens in between. The other fascinating aspect was that the couples were so open - and this in a very small country where the chances of them being identified are high.
It finally dawned on me that the reason why one of the female voices was so familiar was that we worked in the same office years ago. So, in this week's final programme, the sensation of being an eavesdropper on something very private was intensified in a slightly uncomfortable way. I'm glad we didn't have to meet beside the photocopier on Thursday morning. Both couples said that they took part in the series in the hope of helping others whose marriages may be going through a bad patch, and we were left with Humphreys's reassuring philosophy that "the differences in relationships are opportunities to grow".
"I'm tired, frustrated and pissed off," was an uncharacteristically angry outburst from Ray D'Arcy on The Last Word, (Today FM, Wednesday). Hugh Linehan (sitting in for Matt Cooper) invited D'Arcy in for what turned out to be a most thought-provoking panel discussion about road deaths. There was a great deal of commentary on most programmes this week about the carnage. Minister for Justice Michael McDowell used the Bart Simpson "nothing to do with me, it's their fault" defence on The Last Word on Tuesday, and Gay Byrne (Morning Ireland, RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday) is sounding increasingly toothless with this "slow down" mantra. I'm willing to bet that every young male driver killed on the road has at some point been warned by their old man to slow down. Hearing Byrne say the same has as much effect.
Partly because of his young listener profile, D'Arcy has been actively attempting to educate drivers, mainly through a brilliant, hard-hitting series of radio advertisements commissioned by his show. Kevin, the ex-boyfriend of Mary Frewen, one of the young women killed coming home from the Oxegen festival last week, sent him the most heartbreaking e-mail describing his feelings about Mary's death. D'Arcy read it out on his show and Linehan re-broadcast it. Labour's Róisín Shorthall talked of the 420,000-plus L-plate drivers and the bizarre situation whereby a person can fail the test and then turn around, hop back in their car and drive home. It promotes, she said, "a total disrespect for driving".
The Government wasn't represented in the discussion despite, explained Linehan, multiple invitations to Martin Cullen. Uneducated drivers are only one part of the multifaceted problem, the panel agreed. Supt Kevin Donohoe from the Garda press office defended enforcement rates but his figures were up against the many stories heard this week about overflowing pub car parks and drivers who criss-cross the country without once spotting a guard. "No one in the Government," said D'Arcy, "has the balls to say the buck stops with me."
