About half way through Desperate For Housewives, the stage show of RTÉ television's most lifelike personalities, Podge was cut short by the audience.
The skit was Ballydung Blind Date; the question was what kind of sweet his intended (freshly plucked from the audience) might be; the answer was a Crème Egg; the gag was screamingly obvious. "What?" asked Podge, taken aback by the laughter, "It could be romantic."
This show could only be one thing, and, after an hour of smut, innuendo, sniggering songs and single entendres, romance seemed unlikely. Still, the punchline, when it came, drew the loudest cheer from a predominantly young and achingly stylish crowd - the types that had earlier moved Podge to decry the state of the nation: "Did Padraic Pearse and Peter O'Toole have to die in the GPO for this?" This, though, may be the comedy the nation deserves: intolerant of celebrity, vulgar and coarse, contentedly juvenile and steadily offensive, astonishingly one-note and usually very, very funny.
The hand-puppets who once suggested to Anna Nolan that she was "quite a high-profile doughnut banger", or that Ryan Tubridy dressed like a solicitor from "Tubridy, Tubridy and Felch" have never exactly been known for taste or restraint. Now freed from broadcasting regulations, how far can they go? The answer in this live show/merchandising opportunity is both too far, and, oddly, not quite far enough.
Any show that lets you see Podge and Rodge as naked as their makers intended (all distended bellies and angry red appendages, they're simultaneously cute and repulsive - like the whole act, really) and which leaves the stage slippery with discharged goo, is clearly trading on shock value. (The better gags have been aired before.) But on TV, the funniest shocks were worn on the faces of their interviewees, who, no matter how skewered or insulted, always came off well by simply having played along with unblinking pieces of foam rubber.
A carefully choreographed interview with Blaithnáid Ní Chofaigh, the quick-witted asides of reliably shocked and amused assistant Anne Gildea and numerous prompted audience members carry few elements of surprise however.
There's some sporting interest in seeing how low the comedy will go (subterranean), or how long Podge can riff on "test-drive" related sexual innuendo before his tank is drained. That innuendo may become contagious, but it's beginning to feel exhausted. You start to wonder how long Rodge and Podge can keep it up. - Peter Crawley
Runs until April 29th
Tinney, RTÉCO/Brophy - RDS, Dublin
Rameau - La Temple de la Gloire Overture. Mozart - Piano Concerto in C K467. CPE Bach - Symphony in G Wq183 No 4. Mozart - Symphony No 41 (Jupiter).
The RTÉ Concert Orchestra's three-concert series focusing on music of the 18th-century, from Rameau to Mozart, ended at the RDS on Thursday. The series offered a useful opportunity to sample the style of the orchestra's new principal conductor, David Brophy, in an area of repertoire that's entirely natural for a smallish orchestra like the RTÉCO but currently under-explored in its programming.
Brophy's approach has been one of high energy, usually expressed through brisk speeds. And Thursday's programme, Brophy's second 18th-century outing with the orchestra, was altogether tighter in discipline than the first, although still quite a way off the polish and finish that were achieved by his predecessor, Laurent Wagner, when on top form.
The energy is certainly welcome. The cut-and-thrust of Rameau's Temple de la Gloire Overture was well captured, and the drive of the opening movement of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony was uplifting.
It's clear from the sharpness of sound, especially the incisiveness of trumpets and timpani, that the practices of the period instruments movement are in Brophy's mind and ear.
But at the moment there's a price being paid for the achievement of the energy and drive. A lot of important detail and interplay in the Jupiter Symphony simply failed to register, and the performance of CPE Bach's Symphony in G did not successfully balance the music's almost ceaseless contradiction between conventional patterns of rhythm and excitingly oddball harmonic content.
Hugh Tinney's playing of Mozart's Piano Concerto in C, K467 (the one now tagged Elvira Madigan from its use in Bo Widerberg's 1967 film of that name) explored a whole range of freedoms and surprising, imaginative gestures that the orchestral playing seemed set on avoiding. Yet the two different approaches co-existed happily in a performance that managed to be engaging at the moment of delivery. - Michael Dervan
Armoniosi Concerti - The Coach House, Dublin Castle
Yet another fine early-music group from Spain! Armoniosi Concerti are on a Music Network tour that offers amazing riches, especially to anyone interested in the guitar and in song. Their programme consists of Spanish music from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.
Their performances are a striking vindication of historical instruments. I have heard music of this kind in transcriptions for modern guitar; but when you hear it performed by a consort of three vihuelas - the guitar's ancestor, and the instrument for which this music was conceived - you are in a different world. Most of the music was songs, and the only deficiency in the concert was the absence of translations or paraphrases that would have helped us appreciate not just the sound, but what the song was saying.
Maria Espada has a beautiful soprano voice. It is not one of those angelic-clean voices preferred by many early music groups (especially the English), but is full-blooded, with a range of tone that seems entirely suitable for such sensuous music. Many of the songs, such as those in a 1554 collection by Miguel de Fuenllana, have a simple folk- like character. Their high-art qualities lie mainly in the sophisticated and subtle accompaniments.
The vihuela is ideal for such textures. Even though three instruments were playing, one could hear polyphony - independent lines, richly ornamented in the way at which the vihuela excels. It's polyphony with a tune on top.
It is also dance music, for almost all of it has roots in popular or courtly entertainment. One of the most remarkable qualities of this remarkable group was the ability to sustain a dance-like rhythm, not by thrusting it on the ear, but as a flexible background. Go and hear them if you can. - Martin Adams
Tours to Tinahely on Sunday, Clifden on Monday, Galway on Tuesday and Ballina on Thursday. For details 01-6719429 or visit www.musicnetwork.ie
