RTÉ Guide – a festive must-have
IT is only at Christmas time that I purchase the RTÉ Guide. It is a habit going back over 50 years, writes Tom Gillespie. After all, you have to know what is screening, when and where.
I never bother with the magazine during the rest of the year but the two-week Christmas listing is different.
Years ago it was a simple task when all we had was Telefís Éireann. The Christmas night highlights then featured Maureen Potter and her guests. And, of course, the annual showband panto.
The soaps were in short supply then and The Riordans was the staple diet from Montrose.
Pictured here is the cover of the RTÉ Guide from 51 years ago dated December 23, 1966.
The Riordans was the second soap made by Raidió Telefís Éireann. The first was Tolka Row.
The Riordans ran from 1965 to 1979 and was based in the fictional townland of Leestown in Co. Kilkenny.
Its location filming, with outside broadcast units, rather than using TV studios, broke the mould of broadcasting in the soap opera genre and inspired the creation of its British equivalent, Emmerdale Farm, now Emmerdale, by Yorkshire Television in 1972.
The Riordans, written by Wesley Burrows, starred Moira Deady as Mary Riordan, John Crowley as Tom Riordan, Biddy White Lennon as Maggie Riordan, Joe Pilkington as Eamon Maher, Gabriel Byrne as Pat Barry, Ainne D'Alton as Minnie Brennan, and Tom Hickey appeared as Benjy Riordan.
Others who acted in the series included Chris O'Neill as Michael Riordan, Mary Kearns as Delia Maher, Rebecca Wilson as Judy Hyland, and Tony Doyle as Fr. Sheehy.
The early episodes of the rural drama were all in black-and-white and as we knew no better, we enjoyed this new medium that was beamed, sometimes with a snowy picture, into our living rooms.
Maureen Potter first appeared professionally with Jimmy O’Dea in pantomime and appeared frequently on television and in cabaret.
She was conferred with the Freedom of Dublin in 1984, and was later awarded an honorary degree from Trinity College.
She died in Clontarf on April 7, 2004, at the age of 79.
Her television career brought her to a national audience and her Christmas night special was always one of the top rated shows over the festive season.
In the height of the showband era of the 1960s and early ‘70s, stars such as Brendan Bowyer, Butch Moore, Dickie Rock, Eileen Reid, Derek Deane, Joe Mac, Larry Cunningham, Joe Dolan and Sean Fagan were the crowd pullers and were the stars of the early Christmas night television panto skits.
The RTÉ Guide back then only listed the one-channel programmes and as we finally got access to the cross-channel stations we were offered a much wider choice. Admittedly, that ‘choice’ pales into insignificance compared to today’s vast number of channels.
The Christmas RTÉ Guide provided a run down of what was on all the networks and it was mandatory to go through the daily listings and mark out what you planned to watch.
With the one-channel option there was no contest as we were stuck with Telefís Éireann. But with the availability of UTV, BBC One and BBC Two, you could channel-hop.
On studying the list of films on each it soon became apparent that the same films were being aired, albeit at different days, nights and times, with the annual showing of Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory.
So, 51 years ago The Riordans was primetime viewing - a far cry from the likes of the Mrs. Brown’s Boys Christmas Special and the double meaning one-lines, which I must admit bring a smile to my face.
I must state that the earlier Late Late Show vulgar appearances of creator Brendan O’Carroll turned me totally against his type of blue humour.
However, Mrs. Brown’s Boys leaves me with tears running down by face from laughter.
The arrival of SKY changed our viewing patterns. With choices of hundreds of channels, there is always something to watch.
I do not have SKY Movies, nor do I want it, so I have to do with the basic SKY package.
Many years ago when my children were much younger we used to enjoy the Channel 4 Christmas run of the Marx Brothers' black-and-white films. So much so that I eventually purchased the complete DVD set of their comic masterpieces.
My favourite is A Night At The Opera, featuring Groucho, Chico and Harpo, which I watched last Christmas Day - much to the amusement of some of my grandchildren.
A Night At The Opera is the sixth of 13 Marx Brothers feature films and is universally considered to be the Marx Brothers' best and most popular film.
Groucho’s ad-libs are priceless and require all your attention to catch the quick-witted cigar smoking comedian’s one-liners.
This year I have lined up their A Day At The Races film for Christmas Day. A Day At The Races (1937) is the seventh film starring the three Marx Brothers with Margaret Dumont, Alls Jones and Maureen O’Sullivan.
Like their previous Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film, A Night At The Opera, this film was also a major hit.
Others to be viewed again from my collection are Go West, The Big Store, A Night in Casablanca, Room Service and At the Circus.