Siren television the
6
College Tribune | 3rd February 2009
Power to the
Puppets
Cathy Buckmaster tried to get a word in edgeways while dirty ginger double act, Podge and Rodge, ranted about their plan to beat the recession, lovely ladies, going nude and abusive guests, not to mention Lucy Kennedy’s sadistic betrayal Verbal diarrhoea, inappropriate comments, too much personal information, discrimination and womanising; no, this isn’t that strange old man at the bus stop – meet the terrible twosome, Podge and Rodge. The combination of sexist slurs and lots of filthy innuendo seems to be at odds with the two relatively cute, button nosed and red haired puppets. Yet somehow, with their subtle but witty humour, petty arguments amongst themselves and their elderly mischievous personas, they make it work. After all, everyone knows the elderly get away with far more inappropriate and discriminatory comments. It’s part of their charm. In that familiar thick garish Ballydung accent, Podge shouts out “Podge here,” only to be echoed by his other half, “Podge and Rodge here!”. Irritation between the puppets is already appearing as seen from Rodge putting extra emphasis on the ‘and.’ Podge, the cleaner cut of the two is seemingly the more intelligent and therefore more arrogant and often tires of his brother’s idiocy. Rodge, with his messy mop of hair, always just seems happy to be there. Their career began on A Scare at Bedtime, which had the two telling bizarre and more often than not obscene, ghost stories. They have now moved on to The Podge and Rodge Show; a RTE chat show where the puppets question, humiliate and abuse their guests with the same obscene and lewd jokes we love so much. From their television personas, we know Podge (Pádraig Judas O’Leprosy) and Rodge (Rodraig Spartacus O’Leprosy) are two perverted elderly twins living together in the arsehole of nowhere, also known as Ballydung, which is off the bypass, past Ballywank. I catch up with the two just as they’re gearing up for the new series which starts, as they put it, “on one of them Mondays that’s coming up anyway.” “We have some great old guests lined up. We have, you know that fella, Malcolm McLaren hopefully and Phil Daniels. And we’re going to have a few of those eejits from Celebrity
Get Me Out of the Jungle. There are rumours of Timmy Mallet, but I don’t know about that now. That’s going to be tough; he’s like the most annoying man in the world. That’s the problem, when you do a talk show like ours, you end up having to talk to all sorts of eejits.” This rant leads on to a discussion of their most hated guests which they more than happily name and shame. “The most difficult guest of all would have to be your man, Pete Burns. I tell you what; he kind of combined the high maintenance of a woman and the anger of a man. He was a force to be reckoned with; he was very angry. I don’t know if he’s still in extreme pain with the amount of plastic surgery he got done but God I tell you what, he wasn’t happy at all. Pete Burns, for a lady-man, he’s got a mean left hook.” “Also, you now that one from Eastenders, Pauline Fowler, she was some bit of hard work. Wendy Richards, that’s her name. Just before we went to do the interview, her manager
called up and said ‘if you’re going to be referring to her, you have to refer to her as Ms. Wendy Richards OBE.’ What does OBE stand for; oh yes; obnoxious bitch from Eastenders.” “When we didn’t call her that, I think she had a bit of a puss on her. See we don’t meet the guests before the interviews so it sort of got off on the wrong track. As well, Podge kept calling her Pauline Fowler, purely by accident to be honest with you,” Rodge says in his most innocent tone, “And she kept saying, ‘Excuse me, I’ve done many things besides my character in Eastenders.’” “I think though the thing that pushed her over the edge was that we gave her a snow globe because she collects them. Her character died under a Christmas tree on Albert Square, so we made a snow globe of her under the tree, dead. She didn’t really appreciate it. Had a bit of a face” to which the other echoes, “had a bit of a face alright.” The mischievous puppets work so well as a team because if
they’re not cutting the other off or egging the other one on, they’re repeating what he said. As for their most loved guest, they have no disagreements. “Our favourite was Jack Charlton, he was great now. He’s very nice and he’s about our age; in his sixties going towards his seventies so we had a lot to talk about now. He’s a grumpy bollox as well which helps. That’s because of the prostate you see, that’s right. You don’t have to worry about that love,” they say reassuringly As they continue ranting passionately with barely half millisecond pauses, cutting each other off before the other finishes and self spurring their own conversation topics from increasingly more bizarre thought tangents, despite being very entertained the worry is that the chance to actually pose some questions may never come along. They do however take a very quick breather. With the increasing amount of puppet personalities about such as Dustin, Sooty and Sweep, The Bronx Bunny and Achmed the Dead Terrorist, not to mention the many other chat shows around, one has to wonder if Podge and Rodge are feeling the competition. However when asked about their nemesis, they reply. “Is that the new model from Hyundai?” After clarifying, they quickly launch into a rant. “Oh twiggery you mean, oh Jesus yeh! We were surprised that our old host Lucy Kennedy had her own show. Aren’t there enough chat shows on RTE already? There are only so many guests that go around. That’s the problem; you see them on every fecking chat show.” “She’s married isn’t she? We let her off now to go off and get married and we thought now that’s grand. She’s going off to
get married and she’ll give up the old television lark and she’ll go and cook decent dinners for the husband. She’s off now every Tuesday night after the desperate housewives doing her own show.” Obviously a sensitive topic, the two get very riled up and one shouts “Who’s looking after that man of hers? Who’s putting the plate of dinner on the table in front of him? It’s shocking, shocking stuff.” When asked if they feel resentful, they show their cut throat nature. “Oh god, we would be bitter. We’re very good at holding grudges love. She’s dead to us now.” After Lucy Kennedy left, the show had a string of different lovely ladies up until Christmas so the two are still deciding what to do for their next series regarding a lovely lady. “Everyone’s being asking us now who’s going to be presenting the show; is it going to be a permanent presenter or are we