How To Kill Your Mammy star Baz Ashmawy has hit out at RTE for “restricting his ideas” while he worked at 2FM.
The Sky One star has revealed his frustrations with the broadcaster when he hosted at the station – as well as when he was asked whether or not he would film an episode of Extreme Worlds which involved wrestling alligators when he was recovering surgery.
Baz, who was recently nominated for an Emmy for his hit UK series, which co-stars his mother Nancy, opened up to comedian Jarlath Regan for his Irishman Abroad podcast.
The 40-year-old claimed he was stopped by Montrose bosses from pursuing an idea because they were fretting about the offence it could cause.
“When we were in 2FM I loved it, I loved being with Lucy Kennedy and doing all that but there was times when I was like, ‘What am I doing here? I’m no producer.'” he said.
“I remember having this one idea when I started. I met Dara O’Briain in the hallway. I ran back into the studio and I said, ‘I’ve a great idea. You give me a mic, I’ll run out there because Dara O’Briain’s going in to meet Finucane.’
“And they went, ‘OK, what are you going to do?’ And I said I’m going to interview him quickly, but not like anything serious, just about what chocolate he likes, or how big are his feet. Just nonsense. And we can call it, ‘Guess Who I Finucane Found In The Corridor?'”
He continued: “And they went, ‘Never, no, you’ll upset Finucane. We can’t do that.’ That was the first kind of slap in the head I got, and I thought, they’re going to restrict me here. They’re not going to let me do the stuff that I want to do.”
Baz also told Jarlath about his “first experience of RTE being hard”. The former presenter of shows including How Low Can You Go said:
“They said, ‘Well you’ve got a show. I was doing Extreme Worlds at the time. They said: ‘You’ve got the alligator wrestling episode in Denver. Are you going to do it?’
“I’d had two lung surgeries. What was said to me was if you can’t do it, maybe we’ll find someone else who could do it.'”
The podcast also hears Baz compare working on television in Ireland to other countries, commenting: “When you’ve gone abroad and you’ve worked and you’ve seen how it’s done, it’s pretty amazing.”
Listen to the full clip HERE.
