mulhollandman

I am not a big fan of early morning chat shows. I find it quite difficult to watch people so bright and cheery at 7 o'clock in the morning. Every smile and sarcastic line that is presented from the presenters makes me recoil in torment and I really want to hit him or her over the head with the sledgehammer. It was therefore quite refreshing to come across Ireland AM on TV3.

I began watching Ireland AM when I was unemployed after graduating. It became apart of my daily routine to wake at 7 A.M. and watch the entire three hours it runs for till 10 AM when I would go to the Job Centre in search of employment. During this period of unemployment I became very familiar with the lay out of the show and the persona that all the presenters took on. I also found myself becoming very fond of their attitudes towards certain topics. Since getting a job I do not have the time to spare in the morning but I make the point of watching the Best of Ireland AM at the weekends.

What I have found quite refreshing about this show is that the producers, presenters & researchers go above and beyond the call of duty to cover all topics of interest. Their attitudes are that of genuine encouragement and support for all pieces on the show. The mainstream interests such as sport and popular entertainment are naturally covered but with Ireland AM you can also count on the team presenting quirky and eccentric items that I guarantee will get your interest. There devotion to health items is particularly impressive. Health debates have ranged from ingrown toenails to breast cancer awareness. I find these exposes very interesting as in recent years in Ireland the focus has been on preventive medicine. Certainly Ireland AM can accredit themselves to this because they also answer peoples worries about health problems with professional experts invited to talk about illness symptoms and routes to diagnosis's and hopefully cures.

The presenters are great. They do not come across as stuck up middle class idiots but they are the kind of people you would enjoy a pint in their company. However it did take me along time to warm to Mark Cagney. I found his method of interviewing sometimes very irritating. His technique mainly consists of asking an interviewee a question and then answering his own question with his own opinion. This at times is very annoying. We know the man is very intelligent but his constant need to prove it every morning becomes tiresome. But I will admit he is brilliant at his job and he has many years experience in the media industry. What's more amazing is that his enthusiasm has never waned and he is very spirited especially when it comes to criticizing Irelands prejudiced attitude to all things that are different. He was accompanied by the stunningly beautiful Maura Derrane up until recently but she resigned and now he his accompanied by the equally beautiful Sinead Desmond. In the wings to help with the shows mammoth amount of topics is the ever happy Alan Hughes.

A great effort from TV3 to brighten up Irelands morning TV schedule and I hope it continues on for a long time to come. No major faults from me. It ticks all the boxes for me that are required for me to thoroughly enjoy a show. It has something for everyone and is really worth the watch on cold winter mornings. 8 out of 10.

Had you asked me in 1998 would this show been still running in 2006 I would have said definitely not. I would have said that the critic's constant criticism of the script and the acting would have been enough for Damon Quinn, Tim McGarry and Michael McDowell to fold their tents. But to my surprise the three writers who make up half of the Hole in the wall gang are still going strong.

Set in Belfast it documents the lives of two northern Irish families each representing the loyalist and republican sides. The republican family consists of Sinn Fein members Da & Cal, the long-suffering Ma and voluptuous daughters Dymphna & Emer. The loyalist side is made up of the P.S.N.I Officer (formerly R.U.C) Billy and his loyalist mad uncle called Andy. One day the police raid the republican household and Protestant policeman Billy falls in love with Roman Catholic Emer and they marry. This sets the scene for one of Northern Irelands most dysfunctional mixed marriages ever.

I will first point out that I do not go out of my way to watch this show but when I do sit down and watch I find it quite enjoyable and at times very funny. But I also find certain areas of this show very tedious which has lead to me developing a love hate relationship with the show. The loyalist characters like Uncle Andy, Big Mervyn and Red Hand Luke make me laugh till my sides are sore, simply because there is extra thought incorporated into all their characterizations. From how they speak right down to what they wear and how they walk has me stitches. The walk in particular is my favorite. It is a combination of a strut and a march. This is the side of the show I like and it is always a delight too watch. This is because they rarely need to name check politicians or continuously remind us that they are loyalists. When we see them we know outright where their political beliefs lie. But seldom do they ever play the political angle and their main comedy source is their ignorance to what is different. This invariably leads to them having better story lines and when they do get a great story line none of the actors involved of making the plot work.

The side I hate of the show manifests itself with the republican characters whose antics are just simply annoying. The scripts never change. The actors who play the characters, with the exception of Ma, are terrible and their characterizations when compared to their loyalist counterparts I consider to be very lazy. They constantly sell the nationalist/republican side and although I am catholic and from Ireland I find it really annoying because it is nothing we haven't heard or spoofed before. There is very little entertainment in it for me. Some would argue that the loyalist characters suffer from the same problems. Yes they are stereotypical but it is evident that they do it better.

Yes it is stereotypical and two dimensional but this show still has a large fan base throughout Ireland. It's inoffensive and full of daft story lines to keep the fans entertained. The critics hate it but the public can't get enough. I personally won't be making a note in my TV diary to watch it, but if push come to shove and there is nothing else on I could do a lot worse. 4 out of 10

Hollyoak's is the brainchild of Phil Redmond. Redmond has provided the British public with some of the best cutting edge drama in the last 30 years. Beginning with Grange Hill in 1978 he established what has now become a legendary national treasure depicting the trials and tribulations of teenagers in their G.C.S.E and A-Levels. He then created Brookside, which changed the story lines of British Soaps forever with its continuous devotion to depict gritty, real suburban live. A programme set in Redmond's native Liverpool that revolved around a community of adults. Then in the 1990's came Hollyoaks. This was Redmond's project to depict live of the twenty something's in Chester.

On its release in 1995 it was considered typical Redmond's style. Its depiction of real live issues was sometimes relentlessly hard to watch but in other areas it was terrifically funny. It's cast were wonderful with the emphasis was on a naturalistic performance. The writing was crisp and fresh and very inventive. It dealt in a very mature fashion with the issues depicted and its sensitive approach meant that the soap was held very high in both the public and industries eyes. But as the old cast began to move on and replacements were drafting in it became clear that the previous hard work was being replaced by glamour and over the top story lines. The new actors were looks friendly and not very talented and the acting descended from well thought out characterizations to populist acting. This consists of over the top performances throughout the episode. It is quite frustrating to see this considering whatever went before them were genuine actors and actresses. This is not helped by the over the top story lines. Since January 2006 there has been a kidnapping, incarceration of a rapist who then escapes and commits mass murder. It is now Sept 2006 and the big action packed story lines are still coming. This is not helped by the cheesy camera direction that is employed in some of the scripts. One particular sequence involved a tomato ketchup mustard shoot out involving two girls. This was shot to the style of a John Woo. Some people say this is inspirational but to me its just rubbish and it quite clearly pisses upon what Phil Redmond set out to achieve in 1995. What was a good British Soap full of characters that you would genuinely care for have now been forsaken for a more Americanised product full of whining wannabes.

In it's time it has tread some ground that has met Phil Redmond's brief of Realism. The most powerful storyline to date was the male rape of Luke Morgan. This was the last time that Hollyoaks generated such a response from the public. Many of whom welcomed such a topic that had until then been swept under the carpet as a taboo issue. Since then the cheese has been processed weekly and distributed on a daily basis. In the film The Insider the Christopher Plummer character says in relation to media " You will only be remembered for what you did last night ". If this statement is true I really hope Phil Redmond has another ace up his sleeve because at the moment it looks like Hollyoaks current mediocrity will be remembered. 4 out of 10