WagonÕs Den Ð as funny as a highly contagious rash

Date Published: {J}

THERE was a time when Katherine Lynch was funny but like the Celtic Tiger those days are now a dim and distant memory – the problem is that nobody told RTE.

Her new ‘vehicle’, Wagon’s Den, may not be the worst programme to ever appear on RTE, but to misquote the great Brian Clough when asked if he was the best manager in the world: “It’s not for me to say, but I’m definitely in the top one.”

And while Wagon’s Den might only be in the worst three, this is the

sort of thing the West Midlands police might have deployed to force

false confessions out of Irish people in the seventies.

It is excruciating from start to finish – and for so many reasons. One is that Katherine Lynch is a onetrick pony and while her Singing Bernie Walsh had her moments, this Sheila Chic or Sheik is the sort of one-dimensional caricature you’d expect to find one a bad variety

night in the parish hall.

The second reason it’s rubbish is that it reduces Brian Dowling into

the stereotypical camp sidekick that manages to demean a Big Brother recidivist – and that’s no mean feat.

Then there are the guests who aren’t so much B-list and Z-list – although the appearance of Clinic star Leigh Arnold did at least prove that her face isn’t completely frozen by Botox. But clearly the budget for guests is around ten bob.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.