Late Late Show New Year’s special review: Patrick Kielty is tigerishly buoyant as a TV anticlimax unfolds

Whatever resolutions Patrick Kielty made for 2023, it’s a safe bet they didn’t include a vow to see out the year hosting a Late Late Show special featuring Midge Ure dressed like a deck officer from Star Trek and the Eurovision winner Niamh Kavanagh singing Miley Cyrus. But sometimes dreams do come true, and after his takeover from Ryan Tubridy, here Kielty is, carrying viewers over the threshold and into 2024.

Or at least he’s taking them to the top of the stairs. Kielty and his Late Late New Year’s Eve Show (RTÉ One, 10.15pm) bow out at 11.40pm, at which point the broadcast switches to Dublin Castle and a live concert by the band Picture This. (Imagine Snow Patrol left too long in the sun and starting to melt.)

The early departure strongly suggests Kielty’s segment was prerecorded. Otherwise, why not hang on for the additional 20 minutes? That suspicion is reinforced by the presence of the American group Wheatus, who toured Ireland in late October. Did they really cross the Atlantic again to sing their hit Teenage Dirtbag for RTÉ?

Kielty has had a solid opening to The Late Late Show and has done well to neutralise the sour taste left by Tubridygate – in a galaxy far, far away, Tubridy kicks off 2024 with his new Virgin Radio UK gig on January 2nd. Kielty was particularly impressive during The Late Late Toy Show when he was affable with the kids and appeared to get a kick out of dressing as an elf.

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But eagerness can only go so far, and this is a lumpy, bumpy New Year special. At times it teeters on disastrous – such as when Kielty sits for stilted interviews with influencers and sports stars who have left their mark on the 12 months just gone. And, judging by all the frowns, a fair chunk of the studio audience has been wheeled in under duress. Montrose hasn’t seen so many scowls since it received early sales projections for Toy Show the Musical.

Kielty refuses to be distracted by the cortege of grinches. Nor is he bothered that the Late Late is pretending to be Jools’ Annual Hootenanny on BBC Two – minus the cosmic horror of Jools Holland’s boogie-woogie piano but with Midge Ure dressed as Captain Jean-Luc Picard instead.

Guests have apparently been picked by Hunger Games-style random lottery. The singer Camille O’Sullivan accompanies David Bowie’s guitarist Gerry Leonard on a stomping version of All the Young Dudes, then proclaims herself mortified at taking on Bowie. “I’ll wake up at four in the morning, embarrassed,” she says, laughing.

“I feel I’ve been at a wedding. The confetti. Drinking since the afternoon,” adds the radio host John Creedon, sounding stunned.

It’s a bit of a mess. But, then, isn’t New Year always an anticlimax? Kielty remains tigerishly buoyant – just what RTÉ needs as its summer of crisis hardens into a winter of despair. Jools Holland will wonder where the Late Late producers get their ideas from. As rehashed Hootenannys go, however, RTÉ’s is at least full of New Year vim, and Kielty’s Buddy the Elf enthusiasm shows no sign of diminishing.