RTE have a proud history in the field of ‘bad sitcoms’. And they did a particularly prolific line in them back in the 1980s and 90s.
One of the most beloved of our ‘bad sitcoms’ is the mid-90s offering, Upwardly Mobile.
To jog one’s memory, the show centred around the relationship between a posh and rather snooty couple from the fictional south Dublin area of Belvedere (well, it’s fiction that there is such a place in south Dublin) and their new neighbours, a lotto winning inner city family.
Cue an allegedly hilarious comedy of manners.
The jewel in the crown of Upwardly Mobile was its theme tune. The song was a self-conscious attempt at creating the most Dublin thing in history of the world.
It began, appropriately enough with the words ‘Dear old inner city Dublin...’
However, it strayed into gaffe territory with the line ‘it’s goodbye to old J. Arthur, and it’s hello to fine chablis’, presumably a reference to the fact that the newly minted inner city Dubs would be swapping their pints of Guinness for fine Burgundy wines.
However, Arthur Guinness was just plain old Arthur Guinness. The J. Arthur in the song lyrics appears to imply a mix-up between Arthur Guinness, the brewer and J. Arthur Rank, the British entertainment mogul.
The latter is now better known for giving the world the cockney rhyming slang translation of the word ‘wank’.
If a man informs his companions that he is breaking off from them to have a quick J. Arthur, he is not going in for a pint.
The lyric appears to suggest that when northside Dubs strike it lucky and move south of the water they have to bid adieu to masturbation.
Winning the lotto is clearly not an unmixed blessing.
Ireland was a country that was rapidly liberalising in the mid-1990s but this was still a touch risque. RTE have yet to comment on this obscenity.
Upwardly Mobile has, perhaps wisely, never been repeated on RTE. It survives now thanks to the wonders of youtube.
Though given the success of the marginally more offensive Mrs. Brown’s Boys, RTE probably feel they missed a trick in not exporting the show when they could.
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