It’s a broadcasting fixture, that seasonal ritual when an otherwise sane talkshow host gets overexcited while devoting an entire programme to all manner of gizmos and playthings. But if Matt Cooper is positively giddy, by his standards, as he opens the annual Gadget Show edition of The Last Word (Today FM, weekdays), he struggles to generate the level of national hysteria induced by the week’s other spectacle of bagatelles, The Late Late Toy Show. “It’s that most wonderful time of the year,” the usually steady presenter gushes by way of introducing the programme, though even he doesn’t sound entirely convinced by his own hype. Still, on the upside, his employers are unlikely to lose millions on a misfiring musical version of the show.
The prospect of Cooper – not one of nature’s showmen – running the rule over sundry electrical goods and tech devices for two hours isn’t an obvious recipe to set the pulse running. But if nothing else he seems to be enjoying himself. When, during a sequence on voice-activated technology, a listener texts to request that the host stop saying “Hey Google”, as it sets off their own digital assistant, Cooper rallies his panel of experts in predictably mischievous fashion. “All together,” he says, chuckling: “Hey Google!” What a bunch of scamps.
When not perpetrating such pranks, Cooper dissects the merits of everything from smartphones and video games to kitchen appliances, with varying degrees of earnestness: his Today FM colleague Alison Healy recalls ironing her hair when younger, a revelation that leaves the host gobsmacked. Throughout proceedings he reminds listeners that all the products come courtesy of a certain British electrical-goods chain: Cooper’s gadgetry blowout is a seasonal special all right, though it’s less a Toy Show-style teaser for yuletide than a starting gun for the Black Friday retail rush.
As the rest of his output demonstrates, Calm and Collected Cooper is more persuasive than Fun Matt. His items on judicial sentencing guidelines and growing far-right influence on social media in Ireland may lack the wilful cut and thrust of rival programmes such as Drivetime, on RTÉ Radio 1, or The Hard Shoulder, on Newstalk. But his probing style arguably yields more detail and insight than the studs-first approach, allowing guests the time to expand or defend their points.
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We had sex maybe once a month. The constant rejection was soul-crushing, it felt like my ex didn’t even like me
Thomas remembers exactly where he was – in his car at traffic lights in Washington, DC – when he heard that Kennedy had been shot and agrees with McKeone that American politics today is a far more divided space
While generally eschewing on-air theatrics, however, Cooper can act the ringmaster when required, as shown by his long-running weekly US-news slot with the journalist Marion McKeone and the columnist Cal Thomas. With McKeone acting the idealistic-liberal foil to Thomas’s grizzled conservative, Cooper is adept at pushing partisan buttons with his quietly provocative questions.
A more elegiac mood suffuses Tuesday’s segment, however, as the participants assess John F Kennedy’s legacy on the 60th anniversary of his assassination. Like so many of his generation, Thomas remembers exactly where he was – in his car at traffic lights in Washington, DC – when he heard that Kennedy had been shot and agrees with McKeone that American politics today is a far more divided space, driven by populist impulses in the voter bases of both parties. “The old smoke-filled room is looking better all the time,” Thomas says. Thomas and McKeone come across as something of a throwback themselves, harking to an era when people could hold fundamentally opposing worldviews yet meaningfully, and respectfully, engage with each other.
Cooper sounds at ease in this milieu. He drops in folksy phrases for Thomas’s benefit – “It ain’t exactly a whole hill of beans” – and ribs McKeone about a thank-you letter she received from the late American first lady Rosalynn Carter: “You shouldn’t be proud of your subjects sucking up to you,” he says with another chuckle, ever the journalistic professional. Try as he might to engender a holiday spirit on his tech-goods special, Cooper appears happiest with hard news. He’s more inquisitor general than Inspector Gadget.
Moncrieff also observes the prosaic peculiarities of Somalian life, from accommodation in the capital, Mogadishu – “They’re fierce fond of corrugated iron” – to the number of students at the camp’s secondary school aspiring to be doctors, the most useful role model they see
Normally a model of ebullience, Sean Moncrieff (Newstalk, weekdays) is subdued as he reports on the precarious conditions in Somalia, following a visit there with Unicef. Moncrieff outlines the Hobbesian circumstances he encountered in the troubled African country, where clans hold sway while fighting Islamist insurgents: “Guns are absolutely everywhere.” In addition, climate change has devastated the traditional pastoralist agricultural economy, first through drought, then through floods. It’s no wonder the host sounds chastened as he reports from a sprawling camp for those displaced by this collapse, whose 500,000 inhabitants struggle to find sufficient food or water in “unendurable” heat.
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Typically, however, Moncrieff also observes the prosaic peculiarities of Somalian life, from accommodation in the capital, Mogadishu – “They’re fierce fond of corrugated iron” – to the number of students at the camp’s secondary school aspiring to be doctors, the most useful role models they see. He also recruits star power for his dispatches, interviewing Stephen Rea, a fellow visitor to Somalia. The lugubrious actor and Unicef ambassador is clearly upset by what he sees – “It’s very distressing” – but Moncrieff can’t resist making a wisecrack at the end. “Everyone thought you were a b****cks,” he chirrups. “Well, they’re right about that,” Rea replies drily.
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It’s a telling instance of levity. For all the rawness and sincerity of his reportage from hotspots such as Somalia and, last year, Ukraine, Moncrieff’s raised-eyebrow sensibility works better in less traumatic scenarios. Though he deserves unequivocal kudos for raising awareness of Somalia’s catastrophic situation, he sounds totally at home when talking to the “holistic sex educator” Jenny Keane about the decidedly niche toy show she annually hosts online. Moncrieff is suitably gleeful as his guest graphically describes a dizzying variety of sex toys, designed for use by couples or for what an 18th-century pamphleteer immortally called “the heinous sin of self-pollution”. Whatever else, Moncrieff always enjoys playtime – and, as his recent record ratings attest, so does his audience.
