Talking to Joe Duffy on Liveline (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), the caller is clear in his mind where the problem lies. “We’re a nation that’s full of objectors,” Bill, a builder, says firmly.
Though surely mindful that objectors provide the cacophonous lifeblood of his show, Duffy listens intently as Bill suggests that a mooted relaxation of rules on the construction of garden cabins may run into opposition, no matter how beneficial the measure might be in alleviating accommodation shortfalls.
“The people who will object are those who it will make no difference to,” Bill says. Not so much a Nimby problem, then, as a Nitby one: not in their back yard.
In fairness, the naysayers are few and far between as Duffy ponders Minister of State John Cummins’s proposal to loosen planning regulations, with callers giving a largely enthusiastic response. “It’s a genius idea,” says Michelle, whose teenage children are already contemplating emigration. “My garden is my everything, but I would give up every blade of grass in my garden if it meant my children stayed in Ireland.”
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Those who harbour doubts aren’t entirely dismissive either. Eddie, who shares his home with his daughter and her three children, says that habitable garden cabins aren’t suitable for families, but he admits that they could work for single people.
Even Duffy, who never knowingly sees a glass that’s half-full, appears positive about the plan. “We’re all brilliant – including myself – at describing the problem,” he says, “but we need to prescribe; we need solutions.”
The host hasn’t been struck down by a sudden case of irrational exuberance, of course. He’s alive to the cost implications of building such structures. “Would the credit union give me a loan?” he asks rhetorically, in folksy tones.
Duffy also acknowledges that garden sheds aren’t a magic solution to a seemingly interminable housing crisis that has, as he notes, dragged on for 15 years, with the kind of dispiriting effects related by Michelle and Eddie. But, almost despite himself, Duffy strikes an optimistic note.
True, this being Liveline, there are the inevitable grim stories, such as Tuesday’s shocking account of a raider breaking into a Dublin Airbnb while the traumatised American women staying there barricaded themselves into a bedroom. “It was like something from a Mad Max movie,” Conal, the apartment’s manager, says.
Notably, however, Duffy spends as much time paying tribute to the late Irish cognitive neuroscientist Eleanor Maguire, who died last month at the age of 54.
Over two days the host unabashedly celebrates the life of Maguire, whose work transformed scientific understanding of how memory works. The melancholy backdrop notwithstanding, it’s enlightening and even inspiring radio. It’s good to hear Duffy in constructive mood, be it in the back yard or beyond.
Those who prefer their true-crime tales recounted less breathlessly could do worse than tune into Documentary on One: Where Is Jón? (RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday), which takes a determinedly forensic approach to the case of the missing Icelandic poker player Jón Jónsson.
Produced and narrated by Liam O’Brien and Anna Marsibil Clausen, the factual series traces the events surrounding Jónsson’s disappearance in Dublin, in February 2019, while positing varying explanations for the mystery from tragic accident to suicide or foul play.
It might seem intrusive to delve into such a distressing case in meticulous detail, but the prominent participation of Jónsson’s family lessens these concerns. Understandably, his relatives, including his parents and two daughters, want to discover what happened. And if there’s something faintly voyeuristic about the second episode’s account of Jónsson’s fractious tenure of his family’s farm, it also provides a telling snapshot of his personality.
As well as capturing the grief and uncertainty felt by family members in the wake of his disappearance – his daughter Helena likens it to a bad dream – the series paints the resulting Garda investigation in decidedly unflattering light.
The force’s reaction to the initial missing-person report seems to have been sluggish, meaning potentially vital clues may have been lost even as Jónsson’s siblings arrived to search for him. “Slowly you see nothing is going to happen,” his brother David says. Jónsson’s partner, Jana, is more forthright: “I was so angry that if I heard the word ‘garda’ I would just burst into flames.”
Generally, however, the atmosphere is dispassionate rather than fiery, as the narrators painstakingly scrutinise the case’s various aspects. This coolly considered approach speaks of the documentary’s target audience. Though a co-production between RTÉ and RÚV, Iceland’s national broadcasting service, Where Is Jón? is primarily aimed at the booming market for true-crime podcasts.
Hence the serial’s open-ended format – its run has been extended to seven parts, as new leads arise – as well as the slower pacing, with certain events parsed at considerable length. (It also means that those tuning in on the wireless are two episodes behind their online counterparts.)
But such is the slow-burning yet compelling narrative, and indeed the unsettling nature of Jónsson’s case, that the series inexorably draws in the listener, whatever the preferred platform.
Another work making the transition from one medium to another is Drama on One: Truth, Love or Promise (RTÉ Radio 1, Sunday). Originally a stage play, Nuala McKeever’s one-woman, multicharacter drama is well suited to radio adaptation, though its theatrical origins occasionally show through. The set-up is simple: three women attend a creative-writing class in Belfast, where their differences slowly dissolve as they confront the traumas and secrets of the past.
It doesn’t seem like the most cheery premise, or indeed the most innovative, but McKeever’s script is witty and tender, while she brings an appealing energy to her portrayal of the protagonists: tentative Brenda, from affluent south Belfast, earthy Maureen, from the city’s hard-bitten west, and genteel Joanna, from England.
As they unravel their personal histories, the banter – featuring much “pats and pons”-style local argot – gives way to a bittersweet resolution, with unwanted truths emerging. If the broad humour sometimes sounds more tailored for belly laughs from a theatre audience, the play works well as an audio piece, with McKeever’s winning performance rounding out the humour and drama of her script to appealing effect. Who could object to that?
Moment of the week
There’s no disguising the excitement of John Fardy, presenter of the movie show Screentime (Newstalk, Saturday), at the prospect of interviewing Robert De Niro. As it turns out, Fardy’s brief Zoom encounter is unsurprisingly low on revelation, as his star guest largely discusses Zero Day, his new Netflix show, in amiably rambling manner.
Quizzed about the final scene of his signature role in Taxi Driver, De Niro answers vaguely, saying it has been too long since he saw the film. Still, it’s a coup for Fardy’s long-running show, which covers all matters celluloid in a reliably enjoyable way. The only real disappointment is that the host resists the temptation to ask his hero the obvious question: you talkin’ to me?
