The hit series Normal People is the putative source of the political spin-off New-Normal People, aka Golfgate, the pilot episode of which left viewers reaching for their remote controls, with a view to tossing them as hard as they could up the corridors of power. Aimed at the 55-plus demographic and billed as a growing-of-age, rather than a coming-of-age, story, New-Normal People missed the public fairway by a mile.
One acerbic viewer, in Kilrossanty, noted:
“Even the lame name gives it away, making one word out of new and normal. Who does that anymore? It’s a growing-of-rage story, if you ask me.”
And, in fairness, we did.
The plot is straightforward. A golf-society gathering of over 80 persons, largely white Irish males, devolves into a domino-cascade of dodging, apologising and resigning, culminating in the resignation of the star, Phil Hogan, who previously featured in a major series in Brussels, known as the European Commission.
Despite strenuous efforts by serious influencers (in the old-fashioned sense of the word), Big Phil went, a necessary sacrifice if the organisation behind the series was to have any hope of surviving.
Head Executive at the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyden reportedly said:
“No one player is bigger than the series. And if the viewers don’t like a player, that player is gone, having salvaged all their pensions, of course.”
Subtitled ‘Golf-gate, a drama of intrigue, fine dining and access to boys’ club entitlements’, many viewers felt it was even more boring than watching golf itself.
Another confounded viewer, from Glenamaddy, said:
“In golf, the ball is in play most of the time. These eejits spent most of the pilot in the dining room and then made a bolt for the rough to hide themselves.”
She was not alone in feeling let down at not seeing a golf club swung in anger at any stage. Some doubt was expressed whether participants actually had golf clubs, with the claim that they swung no more iron than the hotel cutlery and that their caddies pulled nothing more weighty than pints of stout.
Complaints that the pilot featured no one from ethnic minority communities and included very few ‘ladies’, a term for ‘women’ rapidly dropping into dis-use among fair-minded people, have been noted by executives. They vow to take the complaints on board and when the waters around the vessel of state are calm once more to toss them into the briny.
The negative reaction to the pilot led one executive to avow that he was not present himself and that he advised from the very outset against using sponsorship from the digital, hi-tech, hedge-fund, big-pharma, social media and logistics conglomerate, HUGH BRIS, run by a soi-disant magnate and philanthropist of the same name.
The executive said:
“Imagine if we’d gone ahead with that deal and let those sharks put their day-glo tee-shirts, with the company logo emblazoned on the front, on all our participants.”
This revelation drew the following comment from an irate viewer in Lettermacaward.
“That word was well-plastered all over their faces anyway. It would have been redundant on a tee-shirt. Why weren’t they wearing masks anyway? Could they not get enough gilt for to do the words ‘arrogant gobshite’ on them?”
Executives have been chastened to discover that viewers have no time for ‘goldfish bowl’ events, especially when the goldfish on view are the power-elite of the country. Or think they are. Or wish they were.
A clutch of clubbable beef-or-salmon scoffing and pints-and-brandy swilling middle-aged men does not make good viewing any more. If it ever did, a gobsmacked viewer from Bettyville wondered.
Another executive, who begged not to be named, said:
“We thought a simple fare of deals and devilled prawns would be lapped up by middle-aged, middle-class, middlin'-intelligence, middle Ireland. We thought a gathering of the political and power elites of the country with golf-clubs in tow, more as dressing than as usable props, would be a hole-in-one. We found that, for all their self-vaunted intelligence, none of the 80 plus participants had the wit to see that this wasn’t a goer. I’m not surprised a number of them fell – or were pushed – on to their putative nine irons.”
A full series is expected to run over the winter, including a set of Christmas specials in expensive Dublin restaurants and Gentlemen’s (sic!) clubs.
Feature article on Phil Hogan, by Pat Leahy in The Irish Times; 29.8.2020
Normal People; TV series, based on a novel; ELEMENT PICTURES/BBC 3/HULU; 2020
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9059760/?ref_=vp_back
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