The Young Offenders Christmas Special (BBC One, Friday 9pm) will come to RTÉ on Christmas Day, but the British broadcaster has first dibs on the Cork-set slapstick comedy and is airing it five days before its Irish date.
Broadcast rights aside, the big talking point around Young Offenders is the continued absence of Jock, the charismatic tearaway played by Chris Walley. The character is still in prison on drug charges – leaving his best pal, the Knocknaheeny scamp Conor (Alex Murphy), flying solo.
Two scallywags would obviously be better than one. Jock was also missing for much of the recent fourth season, raising the question of whether the series should be retitled Young Offender. Still, Peter Foott, the showrunner, can only work with what he has, and although the seasonal one-off isn’t quite a cracker, it is cheery fun nonetheless.
Christmas is fast approaching, and Conor wants to buy his mother, Mairéad (Hilary Rose), the perfect present: an expensive buggy for the baby she’s expecting with Sgt Healy (Dominic MacHale). But he’s priced out of the swanky-stroller market. So he takes up a foxer – Cork for nixer – to raise the funds.
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Unfortunately, said foxer involves stashing a gun for a local criminal and Home Alone enthusiast, Jack Hammer (a hilarious Jason Byrne, pulling off a decent northside accent). When Mairéad discovers the gun, the family try to get rid of it by disguising it as a present – and so the firearm ends up as a Secret Santa gift at local gardaí’s Christmas party.
The Young Offenders is an acquired taste that requires a tolerance for lowest-common-denominator humour. It lacks the surreal wit of Father Ted or the sharp writing of Derry Girls. And the Christmas special is as sappy as anything: Mairéad tell Conor that he’s too much of a handful, and has to move out, only to melt when she discovers the expensive buggy under the tree.
That said, it’s hard to get over the novelty of seeing an Irish city other than Dublin on the screen. What a shame it’s the BBC rather than Ireland’s national broadcaster that is the driving force behind the show. It’s a reminder to RTÉ that there’s a whole world outside Dublin 4 – a message you fear will continue to fall on indifferent ears.
