With men of a certain age, nothing betrays their frame of mind faster than the condition of their hairstyles.
In their heyday, Raymond, Michael and Barry, television’s fondly-remembered work-shy and lovelorn bachelor heroes, were never as slipshod about their grooming as they were about every other aspect of their lives. They may have been incapable of maintaining a job or a girlfriend but they always maintained a dapper appearance.
Three years after they sauntered off into the sunset — with headfuls of romantic dreams and neatly-coiffed locks — the former housemates were reunited in a Christmas special Bachelors Walk (St Stephen’s Day, RTE2).
Drawn back together like bits of spilled mercury, the old pals hooked up for yuletide scoopage, and immediately began bragging about how well they were doing. However, it was clear from the alarming state of their hairstyles that their lives had actually turned grey at the roots.
The once curly-maned Raymond (Don Wycherley) was anorexically thin on top, having evidently spent the intervening years pulling his hair out in frustration over the break-up of his relationship with Alison (Marcella Plunkett). As his pate became more visible, his face was disappearing beneath the writerly goatee and whiskers he had cultivated as an alternative to doing any actual writing.
Michael (Simon Delaney), meanwhile, had been afflicted with mad cowlick disease. Following his divorce, he had retreated to his parents’ home where his mollycoddling mother was treating him like a vastly overgrown schoolboy, feeding him afternoon breakfast in bed and combing his hair into a slicked-back pompadour worthy of Dennis the Menace.
The most extreme makeover was undergone by Barry (Keith McErlean), the erstwhile inveterate screw-up who returned from London with a bouffant mop and even more overblown tales of high-flying success in the international music business. “Deep down, I’m still the same old Barry,” he boasted, all too convincingly.
The night on the tiles soon became a night on the rack, as the three would-be young guns began to feel like blasts from the past in a twilight Dublin they no longer recognised. Mulligan’s, their one-time favourite watering hole, was too full. Nightclubs were too loud and too scary, as were the scantily-clad young women who now frequented them.
When Raymond was told by an ecstatic dancing partner that she was “on” MDMA, he attempted to order this chemical cocktail from a waitress by the bottle, unaware that a tab is no longer simply a euphemism for a bar bill.
Gradually, the blustering facade crumbled. Raymond admitted he was a broken-hearted basketcase. Michael came clean as the country’s biggest mammy‘s boy. And Barry owned up to the fact that the business cards proclaiming himself to be an A&R man with a major label were all he had left of a job long since lost. The boys were back in loser town.
Opening and closing to the rueful strains of Frank Sinatra’s Here’s to the Losers, the Bachelors Walk Christmas special was more revival than sequel. Rather than offering inventive plot-twists or developing the characters, writer/director John Carney was clearly determined to send the protagonists back to where they started, all washed up with nowhere to go. Time may have moved on, but Raymond, Michael and Barry certainly hadn’t. The result was a slight but highly entertaining seasonal indulgence.
Wycherley, Delaney and McErlean delivered virtuoso turns, now so comfortable in the characters’ skins that they could subtly send them up while simultaneously breathing life into them. McErlean’s Barry, in particular, remains an inspired comic creation.
There were a few bum notes: Raymond’s wide-eyed ignorance of drug culture, for instance, seemed especially implausible in a jobbing hack and committed carouser. Nevertheless, lit up by a gag-happy script and a sterling supporting cast, the show worked well as a valedictory lap of honour.
But it should definitely mark the last outing for the Bachelors Walkers. As Raymond and Alison exited arm-in-arm, the story reached a termination of sorts. Any further attempts to tart up the remaining strands would just look like a bad comb-over.
There was also an end-of-an-era feel to Just For Laughs (Christmas Eve, RTE2), a new series of highlights from the annual Montreal comedy festival which opened with an edition devoted to Irish performers.
Despite the range and distinction of stand-up originating from these parts, Irish comics have traditionally been presented at this prestigious comedy festival under the Britcom banner, as though they and their British counterparts were interchangeable features of a united kingdom of mirth. Last summer, however, the Irish were finally given their due with a gala showcase at one of the festival’s principal venues.
The hour-long programme of excerpts from that event, annotated by backstage interviews, provided a revealing snapshot of the state of contemporary Irish stand-up.
Hosted by rising star Neil Delamere — whose puppyish charm makes a welcome change from the glib laddishness of previous series presenter Ed Byrne — the show tried a little too hard to portray the nine featured performers as one big happy family, the Waltons on tour.
The relentless shots of comics smiling supportively from the wings while their colleagues performed on stage were particularly nauseating, given what we know about the rivalries and jealousies that honeycomb the stand-up community. Thankfully, in their routines at least, the comedians were less sentimental about the ties that supposedly bind. “I come from a very big family,” said Owen O’Neill. “Mammals!” Nevertheless, there is a discernible kinship in the material favoured by Irish comics. The storytelling tradition remains fundamental, as is a shared fondness for self-deprecation. On the downside, there are worrying signs of herd-thinking as evidenced by the number of remarkably similar gags about how Muslims have usurped the Irish’s long-standing role as the world’s leading terrorist-lovers.
“It’s important that we’ve finally been recognised as an independent comedy nation,” observed headliner Tommy Tiernan. “We’re like the Palestinians of comedy.”
For all the verve of the other performers, Tiernan remains by far the standout act. Much of the hype about Irish comics, in fact, stems from this performer’s deserved reputation as a peerless barnstormer.
More importantly, he has great hair.
