Keeping An Eye On the Czar of Russia

My mother used to say that Stupid People pretend to be smart but Smart People pretend to be stupid.

Which brings me to “Sir” Terry Wogan, subject of an hour long interview with Mark Lawson on BBC4. Lawson’s interviewing is a homage to the Face to Face style of John Freeman some fifty years ago.

For a chat show host, Wogan is rarely the subject of interviews himself. He has tended to create a persona of a slightly eccentric man, lazily living in Wogan Towers with the long suffering Mrs Wogan “my first wife”, He deflects questions rather than answers questions. . In fact he is a shrewd media personality…….at or near the top of his profession for forty years.

Face to Face type interview…importantly without an audience…on a spartan set……..is an ideal format for getting to a personality. Some minor celebs seem over-awed at the attention, revelling in the attention and reflecting that the hour long interview, away from prime time and on a comparatively minor “artsy” channel, gives them a certain gravitas.

British TV likes Irish presenters……but only one at a time. Eamonn Andrews (died 1987) was Britains Favourite Irishman in the man in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Wogan, now 73 years old and in semi-retirement took on that mantle. Arguably Graham Norton now 48) is the prime time Irishman. I should probably include Val Doonican who had a prime time Saturday night variety show for many years from the 1960s to the 1980s.Eamonn Holmes has never been quite …….”loved”.

Wogan has effoertlessly moved between Radio and Television but is more comfortable on the Radio where his use of Irony (I would call it “spoofing”) and ability to paint pictures with his clever use of words…it is an Irish thing. As he said he was taught two languages, English and Irish and can use the “Irish” sense of word play to enliven “English” conversation. His most successful TV performances..the annual Eurovision Song Contest (he presented the BBC version for thirty five years) and the awful Blankety Blank involved “irony”.

English people call it “Blarney” or the “gift of the gab” but it is odd that the most successful broadcasters are very often Irish.

Obviously Wogan talked about Religion and Catholicism. It is compulsory when interviewing Irish people. He is a non-believer who will not rule out a deathbed conversion. He spoke of elite Catholic education at Belvedere College (alma mater of James Joyce)……a father who was successful in “trade” who wanted a doctor son. Wogan’s peers at Belvedere were sons of solicitors, accountants, doctors……..and they all had careers that were pre-ordained.

Wogan awarded a knighthood a knighthood in 2005……..thus he is “Sir” Terry Wogan. His performances in the Eurovision Song Contest where he was unashamedly pro-British are an irritation to many Irish people. He asserts dual nationality. In polite terms, I would have referred to him as an “anglophile”…….he himself put it more less politely in the interview. He was brought up as a “West Brit” ……the jaundiced term reserved for the worst kind of Irish person.

Yet he was an innovative broadcaster who was instrumental in making his audience part of his radio show.

But essentially he is Englands Favourite Irishman because he has fully adapted to their way. Arguably its how an Irishman succeeds in England. Wogan maintains he never had to hide his Irishness but that is really only part of the story. He was already a West Brit……I mean he was already an Anglophile before he set foot in England.

He professes that he is amazed that English people had the maturity, the sense of fair play to listen to his Irish accent every morning, especially at the height of the Troubles in Norn Iron. As he correctly points out he was in a more priveleged position than an Irishman working on an assembly line in Birmingham. And also correct to say that most English people “know” an Irish person.

Yes but that is not quite the whole story. I recall that in the summer of 1982, just a few months before I got married, I was working in London on a three week assignment. I seemed to be getting on quite well with my colleagues. Then after lunch one day, it all changed. I was effectively given the cold shoulder for more than two weeks. The reason? A bomb had gone off in London, killing several people and also killed or maimed several horses, including “Sefton”.

Although I have now retired, I am a regular visitor to London (and more often Manchester). My general interests (stamp collecting, militaria, toy soldiers) often brings me into contact with English people. Their assumption is that I am a “good” Irishman ……and in the 1970s and 1980s would have assumed that I was pro-British. Of course they had been told by their politicians that  99% of Belfast Catholics supported the British Army. Of course there are two responses to that. The first is to to go into that “Holy Mother of God ………shure isnt it all terrible and shure I dont understand what all the fighting is about………to be shure …to be shure”. The second response is to be extremely bland….and silent.

Frankly the only way a Irishman can be accepted in England is to go along one of those two routes. And it is easier if youre already an Anglophile, a West Brit or a Hibernophobe.