Television

Z-list singer walks off second-rate chat show after petty row with Z-list presenter and Z-list showbiz journalist. Is this what we’re getting for our license fee these days?

RTE reached whole new levels of cringe broadcasting on The Saturday Night Show last night when pairing off Brian Kennedy with his nemesis, Irish Daily Mirror showbiz correspondent Paul Martin, not long after the terrible two-some engaged in a wine-throwing feud in Celebrity Come Dine With Me, celebrity obviously being used in the loosest sense of the word.

Trying to engineer a schmaltzy reunion between the pair, host Brendan O’Connor’s plan backfired spectacularly when Kennedy refused to play ball, acting the right diva throughout and eventually earning the disdain of the audience, who jeered the Belfast singer as if he was some sort of pantomime villain.

But while Kennedy was the obvious loser in the piece, walking off the set after a spectacular hissy fit, nobody came out well from the entire episode, with O’Connor eventually joining Martin and the audience in ganging up on Kennedy and Martin himself searching for cheap vindication at the very end, when he said that Kennedy walking out was “a classless act by a classless person”.

It was all terribly hard to watch, not just because of the embarrassment factor for the people involved, but also because it was embarrassing that this is what the State broadcaster believes passes for entertainment these days.

Check out the excruciating exchange for yourself in the video above.