The Women's Programme

Do you call a Minister for State "Minister"? Yes, you do. Seeing as the programme is a bit informal, perhaps after the first time we might drop the "Minister" and call her "Nuala "? Well. Would you call Michael Noonan "Michael" or Garret: FitzGerald "Garret"? No. So.

Just as surely as Noonan and FitzzGerald would be ever so slightly perrturbed by being called Michael or Garret by a TV interviewer so it is sure that Nuala Fennell wouldn't be at all put out by being called "Nuala" by women she has known and respeccted for years. That's the natural way of things. But this is television. The conventions have been established @and established by status-conscious males. So.

The makers of The Women's Proogramme are putting the final pieces into place in the two hours before the programme's first outing. There's many a "good luck" and "hope it goes well" and the makers accept them with good grace. But there's just a slight annoyance, perhaps the product of nervousness. Of course it will go well. The producers, Claire Duignan and Nuala O'Faolain, are very exxperienced, Duignan with Today Toonight, O'Faolain with the BBC and with the very successful Women Talkking. The presenters, Doireann Ni Bhriain and Marian Finucane are two of the most assured and accomplished the station has.

Two of the team meet in the corriidor shortly after 7pm. "How are you doing?" "Scared shitless."

Women Today began on radio in 1979. It was tapping a new audience and though there might have been some wariness upstairs at women talking about equal payor the lack of it, orgasms or the lack of them, disscrimination or the surfeit of it, the programme soon threw off its air of novelty and established itself. The inspired Women Talking, a cheapie production that on paper seemed like a recipe for confusion and cliche, showed what talented people could do with few resources.

Last April Claire Duignan subbmitted the idea for The Women's Programme, it got the okay in June and by August the team was coming together.

The reaction within RTE has been mixed. It's recognised that the team are professional and accomplished in themselves, that they would be good at whatever su bject they were assigned to - but that recognition is tinged with unease. For some men this is "real Channel 4 stuff". Others are "worried" that this is a further maniifestation of fifteen years of women pushing, pushing. One man felt "like a black".

The programme set out to be good television, dealing with issues and subjects of importance to women, issues that in the nature of things are not covered by other current affairs programmes. No big deal. Responding to an audience. Filling a gap in the market. One by one the issues are fine in themselves. Grouped together in one programme, controlled and preesented by women, they produce that unease, that "worry".

O'Faolain and Ni Bhriain are drinking tea in the canteen before the programme and a male colleague comes over. Yes, he has reservations. Yes, worry is probably the word, yes. As he leaves he wishes them good luck.

It is a bit odd, up in the control room. For a male. Claire Duignan is directing, producer Nuala O'Faolain is there, Tina O'Donnell is mixing the visuals, Alice Walsh and Thomasina Corrigan are assisting production, designer Lona Moran and Anne Chamberlain from graphics are also there. On the monitors Finucane and Ni Bhriain are being fitted for sound. There's a VTR shot of Nell McCafferty on another monitor and, on the phone, Alice Walsh is asking Make-Up if Nuala Fennell and Mary Robertson are ready yet.

Down on the floor Walter Harringgton is smoothing things out, a man is sweeping the set clear of foot marks.

It would be odder still if all RTE programmes were made with such a predominance of the female sex. And if the political, financial and business

worlds were similarly dominated by that sex. For a male it would be odd, unsettling, even intolerable. Just for a minute you get an idea of what women have been on about for the past fifteen years.

The fortuitous announcement by Nuala Fennell that day that there is some definite progress towards abolishing t-h e status of illegitimacy gave the programme a hard news hook to hang a political interview on. Most of the other items were pre-recorded. Marjorie Proops, a good idea for a subsequent programme, perhaps, but a bit lacklustre and a bit too longgwinded for a first programme, said "erection". That was bound to set the phones hopping. There were no erections in Ireland before television. (In a recent Women Talking somebody mentioned menstruation - oh, dear, the telephonists will be on overtime tonight.)

Nuala O'Faolain thought the cabaret act, the funny song, was maybe a bit wrong, didn't go down well, maybe shouldn't have come on after the illegitimacy interview. Everyone thought the "marriage map", the analysis of the census returns to deterrmine where best to find a marriageable man (Ballaghaderreen, ye gods!), was great fun and brought out useful innformation in an easily digestible form.

Nell McCafferty was nervous before taping her review of the papers. Catchhing sight of herself in a monitor ("J esus, I look like ... "). In the conntrol room they thought her jumper was great. She did a nervous rehearsal and finished by turning to Walter Harrington - "That was desperate, but it'll be alright next time." She did it next time for real, with the tape running, much more animated, enjoyying it. Finished with "Goodnight, sisters, sleep well", and a delicious wink that had the control room rockking with laughter. •