seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Hall’s Pictorial Weekly (TV series)


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Death of Frank Hall, Broadcaster, Journalist, Satirist & Film Censor

Frank Hall, Irish broadcaster, journalist, satirist and film censor, dies in Dublin on September 21, 1995. He is best remembered for his satirical revue programme Hall’s Pictorial Weekly.

Born in Newry, County Down, on February 24, 1921, Hall receives little more than a primary education as he leaves school at the age of twelve to work in a local shop. He later works as a waiter in London before moving to Dublin. On his return he joins the art department of the Irish Independent. He subsequently works with the Evening Herald where he writes a column on dance bands.

After that, Hall moves to RTÉ where he works in the newsroom. From 1964 to 1971 he presents Newsbeat, a regional news programme. He also presents The Late Late Show for the opening of the 1964 season, but his lack of success in that seat leads to the return of the previous presenter, Gay Byrne. When Newsbeat ends, he starts writing and presenting Hall’s Pictorial Weekly, a political satire show that runs for over 250 episodes until 1980. A successor show, Hall and Company, runs from 1980 until his retirement from television in 1986. He serves as spokesperson for the Irish jury in the Eurovision Song Contest 1965 and 1966.

Hall wins two Jacob’s Awards, in 1966 and 1975, for his work on Newsbeat and Hall’s Pictorial Weekly respectively.

In 1978, Hall is appointed Ireland’s national film censor. During his period as censor, he is known for his strict application of Irish censorship and his defence of family values. Among the films banned by him is Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which he describes as “offensive to Christians and to Jews as well, because it made them appear a terrible load of gobshites.”

Hall has a long running affair with a young colleague from RTÉ, though married to Aideen Kearney at the time. It is also widely accepted that he has a daughter in 1956 with RTÉ presenter Frankie Byrne, although this is disputed at the time by his family members. His relationship with Frankie Byrne is placed in the public domain in a Mint Productions programme, Dear Frankie, screened on RTÉ in January 2006. In 2010, a play written by Niamh Gleeson, also entitled Dear Frankie, opens in the Liberty Hall theatre. Later in 2012, it opens again in the Gaiety Theatre, going on to play in theatres across the country.

Hall dies of a heart attack in Dublin on September 21, 1995. He is buried in Dardistown Cemetery in Northside, Dublin.


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Death of Broadcaster Derek Davis

derek-davis

Irish broadcaster Derek Davis dies in Dublin on May 13, 2015. On television, he co-hosts Live at 3, presents Davis at Large and Out of the Blue and wins Celebrity Bainisteoir.

Davis is born on April 26, 1948, in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland to a Protestant father and a Roman Catholic mother. He attends St. MacNissi’s College, a Catholic boarding school in County Antrim and describes his early childhood life as ecumenical. During his childhood he acquires a love of boats which later provide the inspiration for the TV series Out of the Blue.

Davis starts as a news reporter with the American network ABC and BBC Northern Ireland before spending 11 years in the newsroom at RTÉ. In the early 1980s he becomes a newsreader for The Six-o-clock News and begins to become well-known due to his sometimes-off-the-cuff comments on news stories.

Davis impersonates Big Tom on the RTÉ satirical programme Hall’s Pictorial Weekly and, as a result, is offered a part in a showband in Cork. After a ballroom tour, he joins RTÉ proper in 1975, initially to work as a television news reporter, eventually becoming newsreader on the nine o’clock news. In the mid-1980s, he hosts his own talk show, Davis at Large. It is on this show, which is screened live, that he is attacked and hurled across the studio by a guest female body builder. In addition to this he has an interactive summer current affairs show, simply called Davis. In 1986, he begins co-hosting (with Thelma Mansfield) RTÉ 1’s afternoon programme Live at 3, a role he fills for eleven years.

Davis presents the Rose of Tralee twice in 1995 and 1996, the first of these when Gay Byrne is taken ill at short notice. He memorably thanks the providers of the air conditioning while wiping sweat from his brow. Live at 3 comes to an end in 1997. Davis returns to the screen in the late 1990s with a marine programme devoted to boats and the waters around Ireland called Out of the Blue, which runs for four series, the last of which is broadcast in 2001.

In 2000, Davis presents a radio quiz show called A Question of Food. During the summer season he takes over RTÉ Radio 1‘s mid-morning slot usually occupied by Today with Pat Kenny, and he also hosts the radio phone-in show, Liveline, when regular presenter Joe Duffy is on holiday. Later, he presents Sunday Magazine with Davis on 4 on 4fm.

In 2005, Davis hosts a show called Time on Their Hands, a travel series for older people. One of his last television appearances is on the second season of Celebrity Bainisteoir in 2009, in which he and seven other Irish celebrities manage an intermediate Gaelic football club team from their home county in an official GAA tournament. Davis’s team wins the tournament.

During the 2010s, Davis makes frequent guest appearances on TV3‘s Tonight with Vincent Browne, where he and another guest preview the following morning’s papers.

After a short illness Derek Davis dies on May 13, 2015, at the age of 67. His funeral takes place in the Victorian Chapel, Mount Jerome Cemetery and Crematorium in Harold’s Cross, Dublin.