TV Review: It's August and the telly hasn't been so bad. There's been the odd documentary, a couple of decent new series, a few fresh scraps thrown our way. By this time, traditionally, we are flicking though the channels with creeping desperation; hoping that the sun shines, because there's not much of a glow coming from the box in the corner.
Which is not to say that there haven't been enough repeats to make you slightly unsure about what year you woke up in this morning. Even TV3 now has something of its own it can repeat. Arrive home from the pub late on a Saturday night, stick on the telly while you have a glass of water and a microwaved sausage, and you'll find The Dunphy Show chattering away to itself. When you see him, it's a little like being visited by a ghost.
The volume of repeats means it's hard to know what's new and what's had its best-before label changed and then put back on the shelf. On Tuesday night, I was half-way through watching Peter Kay's mock docu-soap The Services before the faint nag of recognition finally woke me up and I realised that I had seen this before. Six years ago. If it had grown funnier in the intervening aeons, it might have been worth it.
Stumble across Kay, though, and you can't always be sure if you're watching the past, the present or the distant future. He was ever-present in all those instant nostalgia, "I Love Yesterday" shows that so riddled the television until recently. He seemed to have held on to vivid memories of even the most disposable moments of the late 20th century. He could always recall which dance Howard Jones had performed on Top of the Tops in 1983; the exact timbre of a mouthful of Space Dust. With an endearing Bolton accent he could articulate perfectly the in-jokes of a generation. He would regale us with the details as if they had only just come to him. It was best to ignore the fact that he had, only moments before, watched it all on a video tape provided by the helpful production crew. How else could Kay talk about years he could only possibly have observed from inside a womb?
He's made a career out of rummaging through the collective half-forgotten memory and everyday experience. So do most modern comedians, of course; it's just that he does it better. Even his fine comedy series Phoenix Nights made regular knowing nods towards dumb culture. He played a couple of roles in it as if realising he was the only one who could tell the jokes without them sounding like the dregs of a student pub conversation.
On Wednesday night, Channel 4 broadcast Peter Kay Live at the Manchester Arena, a venue so vast that it's a wonder those in the cheap seats didn't get to hear the last punchline three-quarters of the way into the next joke. As ever, his routine was largely concerned with the clichés of everyday existence, his routine on the wedding reception especially brilliant. Kay comes across as effortlessly funny, the jokes pouring from him as fast as the sweat. So what if he's hardly off the television? The television is better for it.
Kay could probably tell you that there was a time, not so long ago, when television detectives moved through crime scenes like buyers at a car boot sale. Pawing at evidence. Prodding bodies. Grabbing vital clues and stuffing them in their pockets like old sweet wrappers. A friend of mine is a forensic scientist. I once watched a crime drama with him. "Colombo's compromised the crime scene," he would say. "He's made that evidence inadmissible." Never watch a thriller with a forensic scientist. It takes the thrill out of things.
Anyway, TV cops are no longer so careless. Instead, they spend much of their time scrunching about in sterile plastic suits, bagging evidence with great care and observing a strict no touching policy. In 55 Degrees North this week, there were two murders at an old folks' home. Only of the victims was an old folk.
The crime scenes were a cat's cradle of police tape.
The drama itself is old-fashioned enough; a weekly whodunnit with a dark edge and a knowing cool. Don Gilet plays Nicky Cole, a detective transferred from London to Newcastle. Yes, "Cole to Newcastle". It is very well aware of the pun. He has some sort of thing going with Dervla Kirwan, who plays a kindly lawyer. It's filmed in tones of ochre and dull green, but aren't they all. Yet, it is attractive and neat, and while its plot mightn't have been particularly ingenious, nor Cole's doggedness novel, but it rattles along with solid performances and zippy lines. Which is good enough to keep you warm on these cold summer nights.
Also on Tuesday was No More Tall Tales, a programme on the regeneration of Ballymun. That project is one of Dublin's grander stories; filled with drama, ambition and humanity. So how come this film made it all so dull?
Maybe it was because it had to grind through public service speak, sometimes taking its cue from it. Among its closing remarks on the main players: "Ciaran remains optimistic about the future of Ballymun. He welcomes each new development as the realisation in the vision of a new town." Please. This is television, not a slide show.
As Irish documentaries sometimes do, it veered far too close to the corporate video. The dull language of development and restructuring and planning reports often smothered the humanity. In Ballymun, there are plenty of stories. One of the most stressful things you can do in your life is move house, as the man at the re-housing training programme pointed out. How stressful can it be when the whole town moves house at the same time? It followed some residents as they prepared for the move, chose their neighbours, challenged the bits they didn't like. But the film lacked story-telling skills, let the atmosphere of the place leak away. It was as grey as the towers.
In Would Like To Meet . . . Esther, the former presenter of That's Life tried to find love. It took its formula - honing the social skills of the chronically single - and applied it to a celebrity. However, that Rantzen lost her husband Desmond Wilcox four years ago made the results an odd mix of grief counselling and lifestyle-makeover pep. It could be briefly affecting, such as when she took her wedding rings off for the first time in 26 years, but it couldn't help but revert to sugary cheerleading. "Our experts know that she has yet to come to terms with the loss of her beloved Desmond," we were told. So she was sent to dinner with a young man, while being examined by an excitable Greek chorus of make-up artists and sexperts. "Go on Esther!" There are many ways, I presume, of facing up to grief. Perhaps this is how faded TV presenters do it.
Face up to the grief of being widowed, I mean. Not the grief of being a faded TV presenter.
The press had got on to the story, questioning her route back on to the screens. They didn't hold back. The headlines were gleeful and barbed.
"ESTHER'S UP FOR GRABS - DON'T ALL RUSH AT ONCE". That is very unfair.
Rantzen is in her 60s, but you wouldn't have guessed it. Unfortunately, said the experts, she was trapped in the 1980s. Power suits and big hair. So they dressed her down and they gave her a modern hairstyle that made her look like a sad spaniel. They sent her out to flirt with younger men, telling her to give them "the look". Here's how: "Picture in your head the best sex you've ever had in your life and have that tape running in your head whenever you're talking to someone." My God, you'd be unable to utter a word.
It took weeks to find a date. You'd be amazed at just how difficult it is to get a man to go for an intimate dinner for two with a camera crew and millions watching. Anyway, it all came good in the end, when she had snagged a man who was grey but youthful and who shared a delightful dinner with her. It was to my great disappointment that he didn't produce any funny-shaped vegetables during the main course.