Bananas in pyjamas Ð the latest sub-species to hit the box

Date Published: {J}

For a short while before there was Barney and the Night Garden and all that, the height of sophistication for your average four year old was a group of large yellow furry creatures dressed in night attire. Or as you might better know them, Bananas in Pyjamas.

Last week RTE’s reality department unveiled a new type of banana wearing pyjamas – or teenagers from Ballyfermot as they are more correctly known to the world.

Pyjama Girls was a feature length documentary that looked at a Dublin phenomenon where teenage girls wear pyjamas, inside and outside the house – or more probably the flats, because these girls didn’t exactly come from Millionaire’s Row.

The craze has now apparently gone viral in that other girls in other cities across the UK wear their pyjamas everywhere, and the other thing these nocturnal fashionistas all have in common is that they appear to all come from chronically deprived parts of the planet.

In addition to wearing pyjamas all the time, they also worked their way through an average 40 John Player Blue a day and swore like sailors all of the time – this was probably the first time that I’d heard the C-word mentioned on any television station at any time of the day of night.

What they didn’t appear to do was go to school or work or take any real interest in life outside of the hobbies already mentioned above.

They also didn’t seem to have parents – at least none that were part of their daily lives – although one of them did have a grandmother who appeared to be wedged into an armchair in front of the telly.

As sub-species of human life go, the Pyjama Girls were up there with the best of them.

Pyjama Girls primarily focused on the wasted lives of Lauren and Tara, two teenagers from Ballyfermot, their families and friends.

Lauren’s future hangs in the balance as she takes part in street violence with rival teen gangs and faces expulsion from school.

Her mother is an addict – and the documentary ultimately reveals that the only person actually keeping her from total self-destruction is Tara.

When Lauren first dropped out of school, she was hang

ing with an older crowd and doing drugs. When Tara then packed in her own education, Lauren hung out with her – and instead of drugs, they just took to smoking King Sized on the stairwell of the flats.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.