Hello and welcome to our rolling coverage of a television programme.
“Your rolling coverage of what now?” we can almost hear you ask, your voice heavy with incredulity and maybe a dash of annoyance as you wonder if this is what counts for news these days.
Well yes, yes it does or at least sometimes it does.
And that is why tonight – for one night only – we will be running a live news story on a programme being broadcast by RTÉ. It is not just any old programme. It is the Late Late Show and for only the fourth time in a history spanning more than six decades there is a new full-time presenter at the helm.
It’s Patrick Kielty. But you probably know that already. And he is taking over from Ryan Tubridy, a man who has had quite a torrid summer all things considered.
I’m Conor Pope and I will be looking after all your Late Late needs – and you will have Late Late needs – from now until the curtain comes down on the show at 11pm.
Feel free to get involved. You can send your thoughts on what we’re watching via Twitter – it will always be Twitter to me – @conor_pope or instagram @conorpope
Best reads:
Patrick Kielty Interview: ‘I haven’t had a conversation with Ryan Tubridy or Pat Kenny’
Kielty’s Late Late prep: Butterflies, politics and a message from Tubs
And if it’s goodnight from them, it’s goodnight from us. See you next week.... NO, that’s a joke. We’d not be doing a rolling news story on the telly every Friday!! We haven’t lost the run of ourselves entirely.
And away he goes.
Good interview with McClean. And suddenly it’s over. It was a lot zippier than its predecessor for sure - in times past we’d only be heading into part four now, eyes propped open by matchsticks. And the interviews seemed shorter and the interactions with the audience fewer. Kielty did a good job, he was nicely chilled and funny but the show lacked something - a really stellar or surprising guest. Am not sure the production team did themselves any favours by bringing on so many faces that feature regularly on RTE radio and television programmes - they certainly gave the haters a lot of ammunition by doing so. But it’s early days and I’d say both presenter and producers will relax into it now that the high pressure first episode is done and dusted. And sure isn’t it grand to have it finished before the pubs close.
Time for one more guest.... who’s it going to be?
It’s going to be James McClean.
Not everyone is loving it. The bad news for Jason is I am the surprise last guest
Chasing Abbey were the musical turn and the Two Johnnies are up next. Oh, and it looks like there might be some Tipperary Crystal for everyone in the audience.
I ran a 10 minute snap poll on Twitter to see what people have made of it so far This is not a scientific poll and asking people to make a judgement minutes into the first programme is perhaps unfair but sure you’'ll have that. The results are in.
“Roll it there Michael” Kielty says and he announces the first competition. It’s a holiday in Florida.
The emotion in this snippet....
Okay, so something strange is happening across Ireland tonight. I have been on Twitter for a long, long time and I have been watching the Late Late for a long long time. I have become wearily accustomed to a huge level of negativity about the latter flooding the former every Friday night. But not tonight. Tonight there is a lot of people saying a lot of nice things about the new host and the show.
The second guest is fellow Downer – Down native, like – Mary McAleese. It is all very relaxed so far. And pacy.
And here’s the swanky new opening in case you missed it.
Back to the monologue for a second.
He also mentioned his family who moved from Wexford to Co Down – via an industrial school in Dublin – and waved to his mammy in Down and his sons in London.
“I just wanted to say how much this means to me tonight,” he said, his voice breaking. “Like so many of you watching this show tonight my journey has had the odd bump in the road but it’s funny how things work out. There’s no way I ever thought that I’d be standing here this evening but I am so, so happy ... and it truly is an honour of a lifetime to be able to say welcome to the Late Late Show.”
And the first guests are Tommy Tiernan, Hector Ó hEochagáin and Laurita Blewitt.
Well that was a great opening. A nod to Gay Byrne at the outset – it was his voice who introduced the new host.
And then there was his monologue.
It was funny – that’s what you get when you hire a comic – and it was sincere and it was edgy.
Here is just some of it – and bear in mind the text won’t do the delivery justice.
I was standing at the back there like Joe Duffy about to be introduced at a Wolfe Tones gig, so you have no idea how nice that feels.
Good evening and welcome to a brand new season of the Late Late Show. It’s so nice to finally get started because as you all know folks the late Late Show has been off air now for almost four months. Well I say off air but its been on Morning Ireland Prime Time Live Line. What a treat it is to have the late Late Show on again after the news.
We’ve got a new opening, we’ve got a new logo and we’ve got a brand new house band for you folks Give it up for Grant Thornton and the flip flops And we’re trying out a brand new format tonight on the show where the host gets to ask the questions instead of having to answer them at the Oireachtas.
We wanted to make a special effort for you tonight folks because apparently lots of folks are tuning in this evening which is really very exciting. Based on the latest figures for TV license payments we’re expecting an audience of up to 27 people tuning in tonight and just to put that into perspective that’s almost double the amount of people who saw Toy Show The Musical.
This is where the RTÉ executives in the green room realise they might have booked the wrong pony.
And here we go ...
Nearly showtime now but before it starts a very short history lesson. The Late Late Show made its debut at 11:20pm on July 6th 1962 and the first guests were Count Cyril McCormack, Ken Gray (an Irish Times journalist incidentally) George Desmond Hodnett and Harry Thuillier.
Gay Byrne spend the next 37 years scandalising, entertaining and informing Ireland. Pat Kenny took over in 1999 and was the host for a decade before Ryan Tubridy became host in 2009, a role he played until his last show in May.
Before we see the new host opening the show, it might be nice to see what it was like back in the days of the man who started it all.
It’s nice to see Twitter – or X or whatever you want to call it yourself – can still be funny betimes.
From the way it was to the way it is ... This has just landed and it is very sweet.
It is too easy to go down a rabbit hole of old Late Late Show clips. I know because I spent much of today down that rabbit hole. Once seen, Boyzone’s debut on the show can never be unseen.
Then there was this considerably less energetic clip. It is memorable for very different reasons. In 1999 the then European Commissioner Pádraig Flynn appeared on the show. In response to a question from an audience member – who happened to be Irish Times reporter Barry O’Halloran, in case you have ever wondered – he talked about all his houses. He reckoned he earned about 100 grand (a lot of money now but even more than). “Out of that £100,000, I run a home in Dublin, Castlebar and Brussels. I want to tell you something, try it sometime when you have a couple of cars and three houses and three homes and a few housekeepers.”
It did not play well with the plain people of Ireland.
Incidentally, tonight will not be the first time Patrick Kielty has sat in the Late Late Show presenter’s chair. Is it mean to say we’re not entirely convinced by his impression of Gaybo?
Most bookies would offer odds on two flies climbing a wall and so it comes as no surprise they are offering you the chance to bet on who might appear on the show tonight. For what it’s worth – and for the sake of full disclosure, I am not sure it’s worth a whole lot – here are some odds we have come across.
3/1 Dermot Kennedy
3/1 Aisling Bea
4/1 James Nesbitt
4/1 Brian O’Driscoll
4/1 Amy Huberman
5/1 Leo Varadkar
5/1 Jamie Dornan
6/1 Joanne McNally
6/1 Cian Ducrot
7/1 Pat Shortt
7/1 Roy Keane
7/1 Saoirse Ronan
8/1 Bono
8/1 Paul Mescal
9/1 Katie Taylor
9/1 Conor McGregor
10/1 Cat Deeley
10/1 Liam Neeson
12/1 Colin Farrell
14/1 Rory McIlroy
14/1 Ant & Dec
16/1 Phillip Schofield
As we mentioned a few minutes ago, the running time of the Late Late Show this season will be approximately 90 minutes. The new presenter will only have to present 30 shows between now and next summer and not the 36 or so that Tubridy presented each season.
Weirdly, despite the shorter running time and reduced number of shows there is not likely to be any reduction in the amount of cash the show brings in. There will be four parts and three ad breaks.
And how much is an ad? Well it starts at €12,200 per 30-second spot. That might give you an idea as to why the Late Late Show is so important to the cash-strapped national broadcaster.
Days earlier Patrick met Patrick with the presenter having a one on one with our own Mr Freyne in the gardens of the Radisson Blu St Helen’s Hotel, just off the Stillorgan dual carriageway. It is well worth a few minutes of your time.
Patrick Kielty has been very, very busy promoting the new show of late and has been interviewed by more Irish journalists in the last week than all the members of U2 over a musical career spanning six decades (probably).
Most recently he talked to Laura Slattery and a gaggle of other press just a day before showtime
So, what do you need to know before they Greatest Show on Earth (or at least the longest running chatshow on earth) gets under way?
Well, it starts at 9.35pm and is going to be shorter than it was. It will run for a zippy 90 minutes as opposed to the two hours or more we have become accustomed to over the last 60 years or so.
It will still be live.
Permanent TSB is the new title sponsor after its long-running deal with Renault came to an end in August.
We were hoping the new sponsor might have been Havaianas but I suppose you can’t always get what you want.
The owl, which looked to have disappeared in the early promos for the show, has survived.
We have no idea who any of the guests are going to be but we will be watching, breathless with the excitement of it all.
