{"id":89781,"date":"2025-10-19T01:53:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T01:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/89781\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T01:53:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T01:53:09","slug":"rtes-quest-to-find-the-next-derry-girls-young-offenders-or-mrs-browns-boys-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/89781\/","title":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9\u2019s quest to find the next Derry Girls, Young Offenders or Mrs Brown\u2019s Boys \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cAny suggestion that RT\u00c9<\/a> or Kevin Bakhurst<\/a> has given up on comedy is simply incorrect,\u201d is one of those perfect statements to the media that seems self-evidently true, if only because it is, in itself, quite funny.<\/p>\n

Reading it \u2013 and this might be a niche response \u2013 I immediately pictured the population of Montrose, from the director general to the mouse<\/a> spotted sauntering across the RT\u00c9 canteen last March, collectively flagging under the pressure to rustle up some comedy and deciding it\u2019s easier to just reject the very concept of laughter instead.<\/p>\n

This probably hasn\u2019t happened. I find it hard to believe, in any case, that the debacle-prone broadcaster isn\u2019t a bastion of black humour and survivalist in-jokes, if only off-air, safely away from hot mics or any forums that might trigger complaints to Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n.<\/p>\n

Sure, getting comedy on screen is a different kettle of extremely stinky fish. But I do think it\u2019s inaccurate to say RT\u00c9<\/a> has given up on comedy. I\u2019m afraid the situation is far more serious. It\u2019s still trying to make it.<\/p>\n

The official denial of comedy abandonment was prompted by an appearance by Mario Rosenstock<\/a> on \u2013 where else? \u2013 Newstalk. The comedian said, among other things, that he was \u201cdisgusted\u201d by remarks the director general had previously made about comedy being \u201chit and miss\u201d, which Rosenstock characterised as \u201can admission of total defeat\u201d.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible that Bakhurst<\/a> said similar things elsewhere, but that line was familiar to me from an interview<\/a> I did with the RT\u00c9 boss in August 2024, shortly after RT\u00c9 secured guaranteed levels of public funding for 2025-2027.<\/p>\n

\u201cComedy is a very tricky genre, not just for us,\u201d he said then. \u201cMost commercial broadcasters have pulled out of it, because it\u2019s too hit and miss, and it\u2019s expensive as well. But this should be part of our offering to audiences, and having the guaranteed level of funding over the next number of years helps us take these risks.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was in the context of the launch of Good Boy<\/a>, a short-form, low-budget RT\u00c9 Player sitcom starring Tony Cantwell<\/a>, and the first RT\u00c9-developed sitcom in several years. The quote from Bakhurst followed a point I\u2019d made, while warming up to something resembling a question, about sitcoms being \u201cperceived as a tricky genre sometimes and maybe even particularly so for RT\u00c9\u201d.<\/p>\n

To be unfunnily clear, his position was that, now RT\u00c9 had secured its multiannual funding agreement, it would be able to invest in comedy. Licence-fee payers and the promises of the previous coalition would combine to finance RT\u00c9-disseminated laughs. Intentional ones.<\/p>\n

This summer I caught up with Steve Carson<\/a>, RT\u00c9\u2019s director of video, about his commissioning plans, and he outlined his ambitions for comedy upfront.<\/p>\n

Sadly, my obligation to file somewhere in the region of my designated word count meant none of this made the published interview, but the gist was that RT\u00c9 is keen to develop a comedy slate because the genre \u201ccan really punch through\u201d on linear television \u201cwith a relatively low volume of hours\u201d while also enjoying a long on-demand life.<\/p>\n

The late Republic of Telly was fondly remembered as \u201ca way of trying out new writers\u201d, just as the more recent sketch show No Worries If Not! was a vehicle for comedians who had broken through online. Carson expressed a desire to develop a new show that would serve as a pipeline for emerging talent. A scheme for comedy pilot episodes was also mooted.<\/p>\n

But he hinted that the big task ahead for Mark Bignell, RT\u00c9\u2019s commissioning editor of comedy as of September, involves developing a slate of \u201cfull-fat, laugh-out-loud half-hour sitcoms\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bignell, who is from Co Down, overlapped with Carson at BBC Scotland, and his producer credits include Mrs Brown\u2019s Boys<\/a> \u2013 which originated at BBC Scotland \u2013 and the upcoming Christmas special of the Glasgow-set Two Doors Down.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ed Power: It\u2019s surely time for the dreary, unfunny Mrs Brown\u2019s Boys to fade from our screensOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In its new comedy commissioning brief, RT\u00c9 sets out its stall, seeking proposals for half-hour sitcoms \u201cthat will appeal to a broad post-watershed RT\u00c9 One audience\u201d. The tonal reference points that pitching production companies should consider are Killinaskully (Pat Shortt\u2019s Noughties comedy for RT\u00c9), The Young Offenders<\/a> (originally a BBC Three commission), Derry Girls<\/a> (Channel 4) and, of course, Mrs Brown\u2019s Boys.<\/p>\n

The proposals should have \u201ca confident warm tone\u201d and \u201ca clearly Irish view on the world\u201d \u2013 I never know what that means \u2013 and they should be \u201caccessible, inclusive, mainstream and, most importantly, funny\u201d. What could go wrong?<\/p>\n

Incidentally, this doesn\u2019t sound a million miles away from the one Irish sitcom that is on air at the moment: Baz Ashmawy<\/a>\u2019s warm and charming Faithless<\/a>. The Virgin Media Television series was, at one point, in development at RT\u00c9.<\/p>\n

Still, this missed opportunity aside, RT\u00c9 hasn\u2019t given up on comedy. It\u2019s looking for the next Mrs Brown\u2019s Boys, and that\u2019s obviously not the same thing at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAny suggestion that RT\u00c9 or Kevin Bakhurst has given up on comedy is simply incorrect,\u201d is one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[43162,1578,93,61,60,47232,7241,50862,6085,57063,57064,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-89781","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-baz-ashmawy","9":"tag-bbc","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-kevin-bakhurst","14":"tag-laura-slattery","15":"tag-mario-rosenstock","16":"tag-rte","17":"tag-steve-carson","18":"tag-tony-cantwell","19":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}