The gang may be ‘back together’ but ‘Ray D’Arcy Daily’ feels like a rerun of a past radio episode | Irish Independent
Flor Lynch
New offering doesn’t feel very new at all, but it does just what you want a podcast to do
Mairéad Ronan was on hand to offer some social media promotion suggestions. Photo: Steve Humphreys
Ray D'Arcy and Jenny Kelly
Ray D'Arcy. Photo: Steve Humphreys
The Ray D'Arcy Daily podcast will run five days a week
Mairéad Ronan was on hand to offer some social media promotion suggestions. Photo: Steve Humphreys
Ray D'Arcy and Jenny Kelly
I can’t remember exactly where I first heard it, but the line stuck with me. A character in some TV show joked that “Opinions are like podcasts – everyone’s got one, and nobody wants to listen to yours”.
It does seem like that at times. Such is their preponderance that frequently, on setting up their own podcast, people ironically joke that there are too many already. It’s particularly true for those who already work in media: someone loses their current main gig in telly or radio and, almost for want of any better idea, announce their forthcoming podcast.
Major case in point, the two fallen soldiers of recent RTÉ purges. Ryan Tubridy, carving out an online presence for two years, and Ray D’Arcy, who left the national broadcaster last autumn this morning began his own podcasting – hateful word but oddly appropriate here – “journey”.
Ray D’Arcy Daily runs, as the title suggests, every Monday to Friday. A second show, the weekly interview-based Being Human, is coming soon; this one hews closer to the format and feel of his radio output.
As D’Arcy’s longtime life and work partner Jenny Kelly (who produces) announced last week: “This five-day-a-week show is nothing new, and yet ALL NEW [with] Ray giving his own worldview while surrounded by friends: me, Mairéad Ronan and Bernard O’Shea to name a few.”
If that sounds very much like The Ray D’Arcy Show on RTÉ, or indeed the other Ray D’Arcy show which began on Today FM way back in 1998 – I feel faint typing that year – you’re not mistaken. A listener could have caught part of this debut and not known whether it was a rerun of some past radio episode.
Is that good or bad? Time, and audience numbers, will tell, I suppose. On one hand, it’s a fact that D’Arcy was hugely popular for two decades-plus. On the other, JNLR figures had slumped before his show’s cancellation.
Ray D'Arcy and Jenny Kelly
More than that, programme and presenter had been sounding tired for quite a while. Maybe, taking the long view, this enforced change will be good for D’Arcy. So should he therefore have gone radical, veering off in entirely new directions?
Or maybe it’s just the case that, understandably, they’re going with what they know for a start, seeing where the show itself decides to go. Indeed, he admitted to feeling nervous the night before this first podcast.
For now, we got familiar D’Arcy fare, beginning with a statement of ambitious intent: “We want to change your listening habits.” The hope is that this will find a place within people’s “daily arrangement with different podcasts” – what they listen to while doing housework or the school run.
He then moved on to a vox pop: “What would you like to do daily that you don’t already?” And an opening monologue, familiar from the radio show.
D’Arcy touched on eavesdropping in cafes, recommending songs, going incognito in beanie hat and glasses, the documentary The Slightest Touch, Colin Farrell running a marathon topless, the oldest man in Ireland and, in a callback to his own impassioned campaigns on reducing traffic deaths on Today FM, a new road safety website.
It was fine, sort of gently engaging, although, at the bones of 20 minutes, too long.
Mairéad Ronan was on hand to offer some social media promotion suggestions. Photo: Steve Humphreys
He then welcomed Mairéad Ronan, old friend and Today FM/RTÉ bandmate, to talk Dancing with the Stars. Primarily, a guy called Paudie who apparently should have been chucked off by now but hasn’t for whatever reason and isn’t much of a dancer but at the same time can kind of dance. Strictly – no pun intended – for fans of the TV show.
D’Arcy then asked her for advice on social media promotion, prompting an amusing conversation. Ronan suggested something called “a trending piece of audio” (no idea) and warned: “Don’t post and ghost” (still no idea). He also had a nice story about his late mother keeping clippings of magazine and newspaper pieces.
There was a quiz, D’Arcy had playfully promised earlier that of course there’d be one, and they wrapped up with five minutes with Jenny: chatting about obscure coffees, running, dad bods, the aforementioned oldest man and a list of thanks to people who’d wished them good luck. We ended with the traditional D’Arcy sign-off: “Talk to you tomorrow!”
Earlier, Ronan had declared “The gang is back together”. It’s more than that, really, every element of The Ray D’Arcy Show seems to have been reassembled. It wasn’t “rock your socks off” exciting, but as a first effort, it was grand; inoffensive background noise while you go about your day.
And in fairness, isn’t that the whole point of most podcasts? So I wouldn’t be surprised if this goes over well with the public. I might not be tuning in myself, though – at least until they cut that monologue in half.