The Man From The Telly

Embarrassingly, when I entered the Library Bar in Dublin’s Central Hotel to interview Republic Of Telly anchor Dermot Whelan, I blithely introduced myself to the presenter – only to discover that this was not the man himself, but rather an exact (not to mention very confused) doppelgänger.

When the real Whelan arrives a few minutes later, he is amused by the incident. “My plan to send in the decoy obviously worked,” he chuckles. Our meeting takes place the day after Cork 96FM DJ Neil Prendeville – he of the ‘schlong haul flyer’ incident – returns to the airwaves, and I speculate that the DJ’s original misadventure would presumably have been ideal Republic Of Telly fodder.
Whelan explains that one particular joke – based around a replica Prendeville doll with a flexible arm, as well as a bottle of beer in one hand and a pack of Nurofen in the other – was cut.
“Ultimately, it’s the producer’s call,” explains Whelan. “But the two of us are working quite hard – and I know sometimes we don’t succeed – to get away from doing dick jokes just for the sake of it. When I took over, I wanted the show to have a bit more comic value than simply going for the easy option. Sometimes if you’re going for the obvious Neil Prendeville mickey joke, you take a step back and say, ‘Do we really need that?’
“As regards doing a joke now that he’s back on air, I think we’ve kind of been there. As a radio presenter myself, I do feel a bit sorry for him, not that I’ve ever taken my willy out on an airplane. And got caught! (Laughs) I’ve been in a few relationships where somebody might have taken it out for me, but I didn’t get caught!”
On the Republic Of Telly episode broadcast the night before our interview, Whelan’s comedic sidekick Bernard O’Shea did a gag based around Síle Seoige’s infamous Kylie gig tweet, which involved him – whilst clad in Kylie-esque hot pants – getting very, er, excited, as Gaeilge.
“Usually Bernard’s giving out because we would write things for Bernard that might potentially embarrass him,” notes Whelan. “But when he was dancing around in his gold hot pants, he was saying, ‘I can’t believe I actually wrote this for myself!’ I thought that Síle Seoige thing was slightly blown out of proportion. It was on the front page of the Mirror, ‘Ireland’s Sex Shock!’ or something. You’re wondering who actually was shocked by it.
“I wonder is it a story where, because Síle is very much the girl next door, it gets more attention than it otherwise would have. With the Seoiges, there’s an element of baking to them, or something. Instead of sending sexy tweets, you’d expect them to be baking nice scones and inviting you around for tea.”
Also on the show, Whelan got stuck into The Restaurant, with a few digs at the expense of Tom Doorley and Co. He seemed to be genuinely annoyed by the programme.
“Yeah, I was,” he nods. “And there are shows like it that I just think are lazy. They just put it out and see what happens, and there’s no real effort to make it good; it’s so formatted that you can see it getting lazier by the week. The fact that they just recycle the same people on it... it’s been going for six or seven years and you’re like, ‘Would you not either make it better, or just stop doing it?’The TV section on the show is my favourite, because it’s a chance to shine a spotlight on shows.
“We annoyed Brendan Courtney because we were having a pop at Off The Rails. But the whole episode was based on him going to London Fashion Week. And how did we know it was London Fashion Week? Because he showed Google images of celebrities who might be at it, and he stood beside a sign that said ‘London Fashion Week’. He could have a shot that in Temple Bar!” What’s wonderful is that there are people in RTÉ who are now tipping us off. Obviously there are people involved in programmes who are thinking, ‘This isn’t really very good’, despite the fact they’re working on it.”
Of course, one of the major success stories of Republic Of Telly have been The Rubberbandits. The show brought the Limerick duo to a wider audience, and also commissioned and first broadcast the video for the brilliant ‘Horse Outside’.
“The producer, James Cotter, had mentioned he was a fan of theirs from the internet, and I did a show with them at Electric Picnic last year,” says Dermot. “Just seeing the crowd’s reaction to them, and their internet presence – one of the things I was really passionate about when I took over the show was that you have to own the internet side of it – it was obvious they really had something. Their potential online was massive, and it was great to be able to get them to a bigger audience. And they did wonders for our show.”
Whelan is also heartened by the reception to a video for Dublin comedy troupe Dead Cat Bounce.
“Russell Crowe has been re-tweeting it,” he enthuses. “Again, I love Dead Cat Bounce, so we made a video for one of their songs, which is about how all rugby players are closet homosexuals, and that’s why they love being in the scrum and that kind of thing. It’s a genuinely funny song, and it’s the same thing – it went viral and it’s had something like 600,000 views on YouTube. It’s on the homepage for Will Ferrell’s Funny Or Die website. Russell Crowe saw it and thought it was hilarious, so he’s been tweeting about it.
“But with ‘Horse Outside’, what’s amazing about the song is how many countries related to it. If you look at the viewing, there’s loads from the States and the UK, and it was the most watched video in South Africa for the first few weeks. It was incredible, really.”

Republic Of Telly is on Mondays at 10.25pm on RTÉ 2.