Young Offenders Christmas Special: foolish and sentimental — in the best ways
The Young Offenders' Christmas Special.
The best Christmas specials are foolish and sentimental. The Young Offenders (BBC One, Dec 21st and RTÉ One, Christmas Day) is no exception.
Jock is still missing, as he was bar a cameo in the last full season of the show. But you don’t feel it here with Shane Casey playing a blinder as Billy Murphy, right down to a juicy gag before the final credits roll.
You’re hooked from the vox-pop start, as people on the streets of Cork are asked what Christmas means to them and they answer as if auditioning for Scrooge in the panto.
Next up, Rachel Allen. An eight months pregnants Mairéad is trying to follow along online as Rachel prepares a turkey in her perfect kitchen, champagne in hand, trolling the viewer for being useless at cooking.
The plot is straight forward. Conor is hiding a gun for an unseen villain called Jack Hammer, who is scary enough to frighten Billy.
Mairéad finds out and understandably enough wants it out of the house, so they all head off to find Jack and give him back the gun.
Billy lets us know that Jack likes to knee-cap people with a hammer, so there is a bit of jeopardy. But not too much. It’s Christmas.
The result is a proper Christmas special watch with a few laugh out loud moments. Not least when Conor (Alex Murphy) does a very funny impersonation of a midwife.
Finally we meet Jack Hammer, played by Jason Byrne. He has decided to go all in as a bling-tastic gangster, which is the right way to go because no one wants a considered, measured performance in their Christmas special.
There are a few emotional sucker-punches, but I always prefer The Young Offenders when they are giving it the full Cork crankiness and calling life like it is rather than pretending to be Americans.
There is a lovely scene in a hairdresser when Mairéad, Conor and Billy are looking for Jack Hammer to give him back his gun.
Two girls in the queue are handed their coats and told to leave because Mairéad is taking their place.
The girls protest and, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it line, one of the girls says ‘that isn’t even my coat.’ It’s foolish and pointless and I laughed out loud at the Corkness of it all.
You felt in the most recent season of The Young Offenders that it would run aground without Jock alongside Conor.
But this Christmas present for the fans is a reminder there’s plenty more road in the show.
