18 November 1994
How did the softly-spoken Dustin of Zig and Zag’s ‘Christmas No. 1’ turn into the harsh cackling Dustin of his solo ‘Irlande Douze Points’? The answer is in the question. Once the alien twins decamped to London and Channel 4, Dustin was over-promoted from amusing sidekick to lead player. Not having any facial expressions, his only possible progression was to become loud and irreverent, and that gets tiring very quickly. In particular, each election brought an inevitable RTE news interview with Dustin the candidate that got unfunnier with every year. I don’t recall any outpouring of public sorrow when Dustin faded off our screens, though maybe that’s because I’m not a Dub.
Stage Dub was Dustin’s shtick, and ‘Spanish Lady’ teams him up with an actual Dubliner, Ronnie Drew, plus throws in those stage culchies The Saw Doctors for further comic effect. This actually isn’t as bad as I had feared, probably because Dustin hasn’t yet gone fully ‘Irlande Douze Points’ here. For one thing, it starts off a straight bat: Ronnie sings the first verse and chorus over a trad Irish whistle. Dustin comes in for a relatively restrained second verse. The Saw Doctors also dial down their usual gobdaw routine. Plus, near the end there’s actually a funny joke – yeah, I know! No doubt Coddle Twitter, already limbering up to drag me, has its own fawning podcasts about Dustin, ‘Give It A Lash Jack’, Mrs Brown’s Boys and other treasures of the Stage Dub idiom. Here on the far side of a metaphorical Newlands Cross, I can extend ‘Spanish Lady’ a portion of goodwill that will rapidly dwindle with each new Dustin number one to come. Enjoy your coddle.
