RTÉ ONE LAUNCHED it’s shiny new autumn schedule in Donnybrook today.
There was huge focus of course on the mega-successful Love/Hate, the upcoming Charlie Haughey series (starring Nidge and Lord Baelish, below) and the new season of the Late Late (Tubs told DailyEdge.ie he’s been swotting up on other chat shows in preparation)
But what of all the new shows your licence fee has been poured into? From pornography, to a homeless choir to something called ‘Guess Who’s Dead’, we’re weeding out the most offbeat and intriguing shows coming to your telly.
1. Pornation
A two part documentary taking a look at the scale and impact of pornography consumption in Ireland. Delete your browser history NOW.
2. Guess Who’s Dead
Ardal O’Hanlon presents a documentary exploring the changing life of the Irish Death Notice. Possibly the greatest name for a TV show in the history of time.
3. Taste of Success
RTÉ (in association with Lidl) launch a nationwide search to find Ireland’s next great supermarket food product. We’re guessing this will involve Irish food producers pitching for their products to make it onto the shelves, rather than an X Factor style showdown between beans and waffles.
4. The Homeless Choir
In a three part series David Brophy – former conductor of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra – creates Ireland’s first homeless choir. This sounds emotional and amazing.
5. The Bee
Kids from 1,000 schools around Ireland compete to be the country’s top speller in a documentary echoing the fantastic Spellbound. We’re still recovering from Child Genius on Channel 4. Will The Bee unearth Ireland’s very own Tudor, Rubaiyat or Sharon?
6. The Speech
Terrified of public speaking? Then this one’s for you. The show follows people overcoming their fear with the help of a celebrity speech coach. In other news: there’s such a thing as a celebrity speech coach.
7. A Poem For Ireland
Get your Soundings out! RTÉ is launching a quest to find Ireland’s favourite poem of the last 100 years. The campaign for The Planter’s Daughter starts here!
8. Whose Holiday is it Anyway?
Irish parents hand over the planning of the family holiday to their kids. Including the budget. Oh.
And the rest…
Other highlights from today’s launch include a new chat and music show hosted by Imelda May and a documentary where actor Adrian Dunbar sets out to “distinguish the man from the myth” of Brendan Behan.
Donal Skehan, Rachel Allen and Darina Allen are all back with various cookery shows, there are documentaries about James Galway and Shay Healy, while A Parting Gift “secures unprecedented access to tell the story of the Body Donation Programme at TCD”.
A two part documentary series called Serving Justice will examine the day-to-day work of Ireland’s probation officers, while Man on Bridge tells the story of Arthur Fields, the street photographer who catalogued people on O’Connell Bridge from the 1930s to the 1980s.
