Kelly said, "I couldn't see past the head in front of me so in four hours I was getting uncomfortable." Okay, so he didn't say "big" head. But he implied it! My poor red-faced boyfriend is mortified. Moving along, Hourihane said there was a fight in her row due to chomping of popcorn. It was noisy. But is the Gaiety . . . a kitsch musical hall . . . the place for an O'Neill play? They make a killing on ice-cream and sweets.

There is also a fine line between low-rent and kitsch TV.

Ireland AM can be the latter. If you watch it in small doses. Vincent Browne is filling Mark Cagney's shoes while the latter is on holiday. (Between you and me, I think Cagney is a bit of a silver fox, which makes it even with Himself going gaga over John Kelly. ) Talk about a fish out of water. This is like putting a salmon in a goldfish bowl. Now, sit back and watch Browne drown.

TV presenters are supposed to look back-and-forth at their colleagues and the camera, as if we at home are the third member of their merry tea party. The trick is to keep smiling like you're having fun. Browne tried. God knows he tried, but his eyes kept wandering off into the middle distance as his facial expression crumpled. He was like a barmy uncle who was let out of the funny farm for the day to attend a boring family celebration.

Browne and his co-host, the newly pillow-lipped Sinead Desmond, interviewed Jasmine, a barmaid who goes topless on Thursday nights in Browne's Bar, Co Limerick. Afterwards, Alan Hughes interviewed a Bavarian brass band outside in the garden.

"That's a big trumpet, " Hughes said, harnessing his experience from the Liberty Hall panto.

"How do you get tickets?"

Hughes asked. Eh, they were sold out. There's always next year.

As a gynaecologist spoke about premature menopause, poor Sinead got a coughing fit. The doctor spoke, Sinead retched.

"You can freeze your eggs. . ."

Cough! "Combined HRT" Cough! Cough! "Uterus" Cough!

Cough! Turns out, once again, egg freezing isn't available here until next year. Sinead apologised for her coughing fit. The doctor replied, "What can you do?"

Hello? She is the doctor. I recommend a tall glass of water.

Back to Browne. He laboured through his next link: "Next on Ireland f AM f office wear that can take usf" Maybe he couldn't bring himself to say the rest.

"ffrom day to night, " Desmond added helpfully. Browne seemed mesmerised by the studio glare and the autocue. Now he was more like the barmy uncle caught by the search lights as he tried to climb the walls of the funny farm.

Browne's stilted performance shows there's a hell of a difference between radio and TV.

TV presenting is harder than it looks and Desmond is a real trooper. As far as showbiz and journalism goes, she can do both.

At the end of Wednesday's episode, Browne dug deep and briefly salvaged a forced, waxen smile. I'd lay bets that, this time, he was more likely thinking about his hefty pay packet. But he was clearly dying to be rescued.

Five days on Ireland AM is no penance at all. Try 10 years hard labour. Lisa Sabina-Harney's The Catalpa Rescue was a top drawer re-enactment and analysis of the 1876 rescue of six Irish Fenians from the penal colony in Fremantle, Western Australia.

They were freed by the Catalpa whaling ship with the help of donations from 7,000 IrishAmericans. Historian Joe Lee said Fremantle was "beyond civilisation, like outer space."

With John Devoy as the brains, John Breslin as a fake American millionaire and George Anthony, an American Protestant as the unlikely captain, the rescue took two years. As the six Fenian prisoners furiously rowed their boat to the awaiting ship, which was waiting three miles out to sea in international waters, they got caught in a storm. This last bid for freedom should have taken five hours. It took a harrowing 48 hours.

They made it by the skin of their teeth, but not without a stand-off with a British artillery boat, which tried to edge the Catalpa back into Australian waters. But the wind changed and they sailed to America where they were greeted by thousands in a Fenian procession on Broadway.

The rescue made headlines around the world and inspired the fight for independence for 50 years.

Attention all filmmakers: this would make a great feature.