Regressive girl talk, comic sisterly rivalry and the birth of the bra

RADIO REVIEW: WE NEED TO talk about Girl Talk(RTÉ Choice, Saturdays), presented by Evelyn O'Rourke. It's an all-woman coffee klatch along the lines of TV3's Midday, but without structure or a proper moderator, though it does have one of the same guests as the TV3 version.

"Welcome to Girl Talk," O'Rourke said, "the show that's just like a hen party but without the food, the booze, the dancing, the L-plates, the tears, the hugs or the cab on the way home." So this is what Barbara Walters, Olivia O'Leary and Kate Adie paved the way for: four "girls" in search of a demographic. Guests were writer Amanda Brunker, blogger Rosemary Mac Cabe and broadcaster Geri Maye.

A preview CD landed on my doormat on Tuesday, four days before airing, so it wasn't even pretending to be topical. "How do we feel about sport?" O'Rourke asked. Soon they were quoting Friends, a series that ended a lifetime ago, and He's Just Not That Into You. This was less about girl power and more a crude experiment in regressive social stereotyping.

To show they were all having a ball, they spoke really fast, and kept laughing to fill what I presume was a silent void out there in radio land.

RTE.ie described the show thus: “O’Rourke will be joined by a panel of female guests to discuss everything from the real truth about labour pain to hiding the sneaky shopping bags from himself.” Could giving birth possibly be more painful than this? That kind of shameless self-mockery is the lowest-common-denominator view of women. The panellists surely would have had something of value to contribute, given the chance. But here? Sorry, girls, I’m just not that into you.

Ryan Tubridy revisited an iconic moment of the battle between the sexes – John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man– on Wednesday's The Tubridy Show(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) with a live broadcast from Pat Cohan's pub in a foggy Cong, Co Mayo. "They're still talking about it," Tubridy said, citing the classic film running on a loop in the corner of the bar, "and why shouldn't they?"

Tubridy spoke to Caroline McDonagh, who set up West of Ireland Networking after being made redundant from her marketing job recently. “It was difficult knowing it was just going to be me against the world, and the fear of long-term unemployment,” she said. Tubridy told her, “You’re a very strong woman.” Nice, if blindingly obvious.

There were four grieving women on Afternoon Play: Gilda and her Daughters(BBC Radio 4, Monday). Sian Thomas was Gilda, a Romanian-Jewish septuagenarian whose husband died. Her daughters were played by Pippa Haywood as a tearful Amy, Claire Bleasdale as the self-absorbed and pot-smoking Clarissa, and Kathryn Hunter as Natalie, who was in search of her father's will.

I saw Hunter play King Lear at the Young Vic in 1997, reportedly the first time that role was played by a woman in professional British theatre. She brought a strength and compassion to the frail and fallen anti-hero. (Note to Girl Talk: you don't have to act like a ninny to attract an audience.) Anyway, Gildawas a different tale of sisterly rivalry to the warring siblings of King Lear. "Is that a joint, Clarissa?" Natalie said, chastising her for not being at their father's deathbed. Clarissa was one of those New Age types who use their beliefs as an invisible cloak of selfish invincibility. "I was there in spirit," Clarissa replied. "I'm not bound by the physical or the material." This comedy, by Carine Adler, had the usual secrets and lies to keep your attention during your yoga or, in my case, the washing-up.

On Wednesday, fashion journalist Annmarie O'Connor told Ger Gilroy on Moncrieff(Newstalk, weekdays) about the origins of the brassiere. Yesterday was the 95th anniversary of the modern bra patent by New York socialite Mary Phelps Jacob, who devised it with two pieces of silk and a ribbon to wear under a chiffon dress.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents complained about Eva Herzigova’s 1994 “Hello boys” Wonderbra billboard advertisement because of the risk of men crashing their cars. Men haven’t changed that much in a few thousand years: O’Connor said a prototype bra was worn in 2,500 BC by the Minoan warrior women of Crete to lift their bare breasts out of their clothes to surprise and distract attackers. “Rather than shutting the girls up they were pushing the girls out,” O’Connor said. Sounds like as good a battle plan as any.