Real Browne better than caricature could ever be

Date Published: {J}

There’s a problem for the boys behind Apres Match when the caricatures of their newest targets pale beside the real thing – which is clearly the case with Vincent Browne.

Yes, the straggling hair wig is funny and the sighs and grumbled asides are perfect – but when the man himself hits the screens an hour later, he’s ten times funnier than his alter ego.

And last week he was on fire, pontificating about stag hunting, crime, tabloid reporting … anything that entered his head really. But you’d be afraid to take your eyes off it in case you missed his next scud missile.

He had two of the heavyweights of Irish journalism on his panel for his discussion on crime in the aftermath of the double murder of two well known criminals in Dublin last week.

But the discussion on criminality and criminology, sensationalism, tabloidisation, legal reform and all the rest was really just a backdrop to the biggest ego face-off since Eamon Dunphy took on Jack Charlton.

Browne and Daily Star editor Ger Colleran were up for the joust and the presenter dropped the pretence of being a moderator or chairman to take a full part in his own debate.

When Colleran paused for breath, his predecessor as Star editor, current Irish Independent editor Gerry O’Regan, painted pictures of Vinnie walking through Dalkey to peruse the papers over a cappuccino, implying that he lived at some remove from the reality of crime on the streets.

But then it degenerated into a debate on who lived where and given that most of them appear to share the same taxi home on a regular basis, there was nowhere to hide.

Into this mix they threw Labour Senator Ivana Bacik, who clearly took her own taxi home and hadn’t a clue where any of them lived – but when she tried to argue from a legal perspective (and she is the Reid Professor of Criminal Law at Trinity after all) she was headed off at the pass by the boys who were more interested in ego jousting than sticking to the theme of the night.

Now that he has made the transition from radio to television, Browne is compulsive viewing for anyone with the remotest interest in current affairs and even when it’s not a topic you have a clue about, he’s always likely to pull some other rabbit out of the hat.

He cannot hide his indignation, he makes no effort to balance the debate, he offers his own opinion on everything and he rarely sticks to the point anyway – but it is his unconventional presenting style that makes him such a complete success.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.