RTE have finally caved in and given Tommy Tiernan and Hector Ó hEochagáin not only a new national weekend radio show but a TV show too.
Tommy and Hector’s Craic House first aired on Sunday 27th December and is trying to be a comical entertainment and chat show, Alan Carr’s Chatty Man it’s not.
Being from originally from Kells and having lived and worked in Navan I find the interaction between the pair quite hilarious but because of their familiarity with each other some of their interaction can alienate viewers not from the area,
Guests on the show included Kerry footballer Paul Galvin, journalist Kevin Meyers and musician/actress Maria Doyle Kennedy. The pair made their first show even more parochial by bringing their old schoolmates on. Music was provided by And So I Watch You From Afar, Maria Doyle Kennedy and a girl from Galway/Arran Islands who’s name is in Irish and I can’t spell. I was surprised Meyers agreed to go on the show, it would have been nice to hear him talk instead of Tiernan going on a rant about how crap or great Ireland is.
The problem with the show is that too much has been squished into an hour. Due to this the interviews seem completely rushed and just as the viewer is getting into what’s going on, it’s over.
The show also featured what must be the most politically incorrect ‘gameshow’ on television. The Wheel of Accent Fortune features an audience member lying on a wheel which is spun, again think Friday Night Project with Justin Lee Collins and Alan Carr. Whereever the head of the contestant stops, they have to read a sentence in the accent of that place. We got Nigerian, Chinese and the infamous Cork accent.
The problem is this isn’t The Late Late Show and it’s not Friday Night Project either. If guests take the time to come on the show, give them a little bit of respect, it’s not much to ask.
If this is what we get for our licence fee, dump the telly and watch on the RTE’s iplayer