The Weekend On One With Brendan O'Connor

I'm generally pretty open, but jaysus this Victoria Mary Clark 'spiritual' chat is painful.

No and I was expecting another cringefest, but I really enjoyed that interview - very honest and some relatable stuff. Seems like a good egg.

A couple of, very good, in depth, interviews there this morning. A very enjoyable listen.

Honestly an actor talking about their new film is every bit as boring as a sports person being interviewed.

And there’s an awful lot of these “hucksters” infesting the airwaves these days.

Why are these gloamers being given airtime on certain shows has me puzzled.

Serious shows should be serious, not platforms for these mouthy jackasses to peddle their rubbish.

Not to mention shows needing guests.

whats a gloamer, actors or writers only appear on radio to promote a film or a tv series / book at least actors are trained to talk and present an interesting story , sports people are 90 per cent boring repeating tired cliches or old storys about a match 3 years ago .

steve coogan started off playing a sports reporter who talks in old cliches .

i have not heard one good interview on this program.

Do we really need another drama about the magadelene laundrys . i think he wants to work in ireland for obvious reasons

I broke down hearing him talking about his mother's dementia. The interview was well done.

he,s a good interviewer but for the most part his interviews are not interesting if you like actors or writers talking theres dozens of podcasts that are avaidable i like the andy richter 3 questions podcast or you make it weird .i think tina fey and chelsea peretti are always entertaining and they don,t just talk about their latest tv show

Your previous post said “exceptionally good”; now it’s dialed back to “good”. My term “excessive praise” was aimed at the former comment.

For the record, I also think he’s a good interviewer. He does seem quite genuine and sincere when doing these, not for example hurriedly and nervously rushing through a prepared set of questions on cue cards without listening to the interviewee’s answers.

He is however an awful moderator, almost falling over himself to constantly remind us that “x isn’t here to defend themselves”* - had you listened for more than 1 minute to tonight’s Callan’s Kicks you’d have heard not one but two references to these types of comments in a sketch about the show.

The make-up of his panels also leave a lot to be desired as it has become an echo chamber of the same type of panelist almost all the time. Some of the panelists are almost semi-permanent at this stage.

The main problem with his eponymously titled show is interviews only make up a small part of the 4 hours he’s on air for at the weekends, and the overall output suffers when it’s brought down by over-cautiousness and an at times non-representative panel.

Returning to his interview skills, he would perhaps be better suited to a dedicated interview show, a “Brendan O’Connor meets ________” type show, be it pre-recorded or live; rather than something that tries to combine 1:1 interviews, a paper review, occasional cookery segments, desert island discs, book reviews, or whatever else is thrown into the mix on any one day. He has a real strength in this area and it is being under-utilised on a this type of format.

* I am fully aware of the reasons behind this, but O’Connor isn’t the only person hosting a live radio show on RTÉ, other hosts seem far more adept at handling potentially libellous comments than him.

I think he's very good sometimes at the one-to-one stuff but his own 'politics' and/or interests (e.g. the whole self-appointed mental health guru stuff) inform his approach too much at times. I always found Marian more subjective and had a healthy dose of cynicism. Can you imagine Marian having the actor Robert Sheehan on (twice!) and lapping up some of his guff so easily?

Agreed. The panel moderating is excruciating sometimes, even though I still tune in. "In your opinion"…"that's your opinion". Yes, Brendan…I think that's the whole point of having the panel guests on!

Brendan off again.

Bressie on again.

Radio off again.

I honestly think guys like Bressie, and yer man Harding, are kept as backup options when they can't find a guest to fill a slot on Irish radio.

"Jez, we haven't got anyone to fill the 1115 to 1140 slot......give Bressie a ring".

They know he'll never say no.

Or yer man Harding will waffle for half an hour about nothing.

Would you stop Michael Harding is a national treasure.

No half hour listening to him is wasted.

Young? He's middle aged.