Last week I reviewed some of the new programmes on Newstalk, but even then trouble was brewing on one of the regular shows, George Hook’s High Noon. The controversy reached ridiculous levels last week, culminating in the suspension of the presenter. There were lots of toys being thrown out of prams, followed by the mob with…

So, Newstalk has shuffled around some of its presenters, though to what effect or purpose I’m not really sure. Drive has been replaced by The Hard Shoulder, and while I’ll miss Sarah McInerney from the evening show I’m not too enamoured of Ivan Yates taking over the slot. He is too laddish for my liking and is lowering…

When a drama is scheduled to run for four consecutive nights you know the broadcaster thinks it’s offering something special. And so it was with The State (Channel 4), which finished on Wednesday of last week. It was sad, disturbing, absorbing, and the recent terrorist attacks made this story of people joining ISIS all the…

I was looking forward to the new drama Trust Me (BBC 1, Tuesday nights) – it looked promising from the trailers and starred Jodie Whittaker, impressive as the bereaved mother in Broadchurch, and soon to become the new Doctor Who (more on the gender issue later). Here she plays a nurse who turns whistle-blower but…

At the time of the election in the USA I wrote that I had a sense of dread with Donald Trump becoming President. I wouldn’t have been happy with Hilary Clinton getting the job either, and wondered how such a vast country with such potential couldn’t produce better than those two candidates. My sense of…

What I like about Sunday Sequence (BBC Radio Ulster) is the wide variety of topics and contributors. Last Sunday’s edition had several worthwhile topics covered even in the first half hour. There was an analysis of the current political troubles in resource-rich Venezuela, outlining the Church’s mediation attempts and its difficulty in avoiding manipulation by…

It wasn’t as momentous as some made out but the departure of the host from Tonight With Vincent Browne (TV3) after ten years is certainly worth marking. His period on the show has been marked by outrage at social injustice, incisive political analysis, savaging of politicians, affirming of journalists (except from the Irish Independent), relatively…

One of the (many!) things that irritates me about mainstream media is the level of religious illiteracy among commentators. A glaring example turned up in last Saturday’s Countrywide (RTÉ Radio 1), when Damien O’Reilly interviewed Evelyn Cusack of Met Éireann. Weather superstitions and the alleged influence of saints were discussed but then O’Reilly dropped this…

Films from the 1960s tend to look very dated – what with garish colours and embarassing haircuts – but I find the film Man For All Seasons (RTÉ One, Saturday) still held up well. Paul Schofield, whose work was more on stage than on film, turns in an Oscar-winning performance as St Thomas More, in…

When on holidays to France one of my favourite places is Mont Saint Michel, so I was glad to see it featured on last Sunday’s Songs of Praise (BBC 1). Now a World Heritage Site, its modest origins were in the 8th Century and later it became a Benedictine monastery from the 10th Century. Most…