The Black Hole that is the Late Late Show

First published in the Western People on Monday.

If Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity is correct, there exist, somewhere in the universe, things called black holes. A black hole is a region of space where matter has become so compact it has collapsed into itself. A black hole’s gravitational field is so strong that it draws everything around into it, allowing nothing – not light, not gravity, not anything – to escape.

In Ireland, we are familiar with black holes. One will start broadcasting against this Friday night at nine-thirty on RTÉ 1, holding all otherwise sentient, sensible people in its iron grasp for the next two and a half hours.

People once thought that the Late Late Show couldn’t survive Gay Byrne’s retirement. They’ve had to think again – although Uncle Gaybo has never really gone away, his last Late Late Show was fifteen years ago. And still the show goes on after him, Friday after Friday, year after year.

It is not entirely unreasonable to expect that, should the direst of warnings come true and Ireland is three feet underwater as a result of global warming, or the proliferation of windfarms and pylons and the Lord knows what has left the green isle of Erin habitable only by rats, badgers and the rougher sort of insect, there will still be a tower in Montrose that will fizzle fitfully into life every Friday in autumn, winter and spring to announce that tonight, ladies and gentlemen, it’s the Late Late Show, and here is your host ...

Being the host of the Late Late Show is, supposedly, the premier job in Irish broadcasting. This is the reason RTÉ has historically paid its stars great pots of money for the apparently straightforward job of asking some British soap opera star how much she liked visiting Ireland and if, perhaps, she had any relations here. If someone like Pat Kenny wasn’t paid a big ball of money, the fear was that he would go somewhere else, and take all his listenership with him, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

The interesting thing is that the bluff has been called. Newstalk made Pat Kenny an offer he couldn’t refuse last year and so Kenny left RTÉ after forty years to do his old show for a new boss. Newstalk’s plan was that Pat’s pipes would sound from Marconi house, and Kenny’s loyal listenership would obey the massive advertising campaign to “move the dial” and follow their leader.

Except that’s not what happened at all. The latest figures are that Pat Kenny’s radio show on Newstalk gets 143,000 listeners, while Pat’s old show in RTÉ, now hosted by Seán O’Rourke, gets 307,000. That’s a hiding by double scores in anybody’s language.

The nation now has solid field data about what happens when a big star moves. Nothing is what happens when a big star moves. RTÉ get someone else, and someone else becomes a star instead. And what is the result of this? UTV come along and offer Pat even more money to do a Late Late-style show for them, once they get up and running. If this column were ever in a position to interview Pat Kenny, the first question would be “can you believe your luck?”

Pat Kenny’s successor as host of the Late Late Show, Ryan Tubridy, is equally blessed in having a career that seems impervious to the market’s opinion of him. In one way, Tubridy was given the media equivalent of a hospital pass when he was asked to replace Gerry Ryan in the 2FM schedule after Ryan’s sudden death. Ryan was not everyone’s cup of tea but those who liked him, loved him. And those who loved Gerry Ryan are not impressed by his replacement.

But in the bigger picture, the poor radio figures don’t really matter. What is amazing about Tubridy is that in the age of the world wide web, internet streaming, Netflix, Sky plus, digital TV and more, Irish adults will sit down on Friday and watch the Late Late Show, let it matter a damn who’s on it as a guest or who’s presenting the show. It could be Ryan Tubridy interviewing Miriam O’Callaghan or Miriam O’Callaghan interviewing Ryan Tubridy. There’s no real difference. It’s Friday night, and this is what we do.

Ryan Tubridy’s Late Late Show isn’t the worst show of its kind on television. That strange show RTÉ broadcast after the nine o’clock news on Saturday night is surely the racing favourite for that dustbin honour. In fact, that show is so far from good it’s hard to understand why it’s not on TV3.

The galling thing is that the Late Late Show isn’t meant to be a show that isn’t the worst show on television. It’s meant to be the best show on television, the show that holds a mirror up to Ireland as this great nation of talkers and wits discuss and debate the great issues of day, from Ireland’s role in Europe to whether the nation should simply put Brian Cody in charge of everything and be done with it.

That is very different from listening to comedian Des Bishop, economist David McWilliams, stylist Lisa Fitzpatrick and Dolores Kehoe. Who on earth is Dolores Kehoe? Who cares what the other three think about anything?

Writing in the Irish Times about Tubridy’s unhappy radio listenership figures, Laura Slattery suggested that the problem wasn’t Tubridy but RTÉ management, for asking Tubridy to do a job for which he clearly isn’t suited. But it’s easy to see how RTÉ management could be puzzled by Tubridy, as he’s not suited to presenting a TV show that holds a mirror to a nation either, and the figures for that show are solid as the rock of Gibraltar.

The answer, as is often the case, lies closer to home. It’s us. It’s the nation. The people of Ireland would watch the Late Late Show even if were presented by Lorcan Murray and featured the cast of Fair City reading tweets of the week. What incentive is there for the Late Late Show to be any good if there’s no disincentive for it to be awful? Why can’t we move the dial? Why do we feel we have to do what we’ve always done? What’s the matter with us?

Claire Byrne is the Late Late Show's Only Hope

RTÉ has a dilemma in regard to the Late Late Show. It is this: the number of people who watch the show seems to exist in inverse proportion to those who actually like it.

If people stopped watching the Late Late, the next step for RTÉ would be obvious and inevitable. But people don’t stop watching. Twelve years since Gay Byrne did his last Late Late Show, the program remains a ratings juggernaut for RTÉ, even though the amount of people who claim to like it is equivalent to the current population of the Great Blasket.

The Late Late is an anachronism. In its glory years of the 1970s and 1980s, there was nothing else. The very presence of people in Ireland talking on television about Irish things was remarkable in and of itself. To think that that the Gay Byrne Late Late was shy about combing the RTÉ canteen is to re-write history. But that wasn’t a problem then, because the very existence of the show was novel and thrilling. Who cared if this was Maureen Potter’s ten millionth appearance? Ireland had taken her place among the nations of the Earth.

That thrill is now long gone. The audience’s sophistication has increased dramatically, meaning that they are less tolerant of the revolving guest list of Pat Shortt, Brendan O’Carroll and someone from Fair City. But they are not so sophisticated as to go watch something else. The nation hasn’t reached that level yet, it seems.

This presents RTÉ with a dilemma. The show must stay on the road because it brings in the money necessary to pay those extraordinary RTÉ salaries, but the standard of show is now so low that it has to be depressing everyone who works in Montrose. It’s time for a change. Tubridy is out of his depth. They need a new host – or hostess.

Miriam O’Callaghan is presented as the Woman Most Likely whenever this discussion comes up, but RTÉ should be a little more daring and give the Late Late Show a 21st Century hostess. Someone who can talk equally well to the Fair City starlets before the break and put the heat on public figures after.

There’s only one choice. It has to be Claire Byrne, and for three reasons.

Firstly, she can do all the frothy stuff, as she does weekly on the Daily Show. Your correspondent has never seen the Daily Show but it’s almost certainly fine, if that’s your bag. Tubridy is fine interviewing the Fair City barmaids too, but it was, famously, a point of contention for Pat Kenny.

But while Tubridy struggles with the grown-up stuff, Byrne is excellent, as she proves daily on the Late Debate on Radio One and used to prove on the Newstalk Breakfast Show. This is the second point in her favour. Claire Byrne understands current affairs. Not only is she is a tenacious interviewer, but she never editorialises. She knows he purpose is to moderate debate, rather than participate in it.

The final reason Claire Byrne would make an excellent hostess for the Late Late Show is less obvious, but vital. She can’t be pushed around.

It’s a small thing, but subtly revealing – the Newstalk Breakfast Show does a paper view every morning. And while your correspondent hasn’t been keeping score, I do have the impression that Ivan Yates always does the broadsheets and Chris Donaghue always does the tabloids. When Claire Byrne co-hosted, they alternated. That says a lot about La Byrne.

If the Late Late Show can be saved, it’s only Claire Byrne that can do it. And if RTÉ send Brendan O’Connor to Mongolia and replace his wretched show with Máirtín Tom Sheáinín’s marvellous Comhrá on TG4, that wouldn’t be a bad day’s work either.

A Smiling Public Man: Gay Byrne and the Presidency

Gay Byrne’s withdrawal from the Presidential race is disappointing. Vincent Browne was correct in his analysis in the Irish Times on Wednesday – although a vulnerable candidate in an election, Byrne would have made a fine President.

It all boils down to what it is the President can do. As remarked last week, all this blather about Presidents for the people and re-inventing the office is just that – blather. The President’s role is clearly defined in the constitution and woe betide any President who veers from that path.

A President simply needs to be a safe pair of hands to oversee the operation of Government. Once a President appears to interfere in the operation of Government, the house comes crashing down – vide Paddy Hillery in 1982, and Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh in 1977, may God be good to them both.

Byrne may believe Romano Prodi to be a “fat slug” – an insult that An Spailpín is baffled by not hearing about during the first Lisbon referendum – but he would be enough of a pro to keep that opinion under his topper for the duration of his Presidency.

Think of all the people Gay Byrne interviewed down the years – An Spailpín is willing to beat that he couldn’t stand half of them. He might think Newbridge silver is junk but as long as they keep sending the cheques he’ll keep rolling his r’s in the ad copy.

Byrne could have been the definition of Yeats’ smiling public man as President. Because there is a want in the Irish psyche to have someone to mind us, and it’s only that strange want in the Irish mind that explains why we suddenly place such store in the office of President.

It seems that the public perception of the President now exists outside of constitution definition – how many people can name the Council of State, for instance? – but in another part of the Irish experience; the insecure, needy part that always needs a reason to feel good about ourselves.

The needy part that always scans the British papers on the Monday after a Six Nations weekend to ensure that we’ve got the pat on the head we feel we deserve. Ninety years on from independence, we still need the nod from the Big House.

And that’s what the President does in the eyes of the people. Makes us feel good about our selves. Marys McAleese and Robinson did just that, the former though her human empathy and diplomatic gifts, the latter through expert spin.

That’s why David Norris was so popular, until it transpired he was the only man in Ireland who had learned nothing from twenty years of child abuse scandals. As a political activist pointed out to your correspondent recently, Norris wasn’t favourite despite his being gay; he was favourite because of it.

Electing a gay President would have been another kick in the teeth for the old order, about whom the modern nation feels such intense betrayal. But in Norris’ absence, Gay Byrne would have been the next best thing. Instead of a radical statement of intent, a return to a lovely old blankie of childhood.

The left wing commentariat are trying to portray Byrne as right wing, but his own description of himself as apolitical is the most accurate. Gay Byrne is a cypher in whom the nation sees what it wants to see. Gay’s great gift as a broadcaster and public figure was his ability to sublimate his own ego to let that happen, and never let actual Gay peep through. He was the smiling public man in excelsis.

And perhaps it’s because of that unwillingness to be seen in full scrutiny that Byrne has stepped down. There was a two part documentary about Byrne some years ago on TV that showed us precisely nothing about that man, which is no doubt exactly how he wanted it. After all these years, why lose it all now? There is no second Gaybo for Russell Murphy to burn.

The Rose of Tralee - the First Fell Sign of Winter

Is there a more grim harbinger of winter in Ireland than the annual return of the Rose of Tralee to our TV screens? An Spailpín has grown to hate the winter as Iago did hate the Moor and, to his sensitive soul, the saturation media coverage for this week’s event in Tralee has the same effect as hearing the carpenters building the gallows outside the condemned man’s cell.

The Rose of Tralee is a wintry vision because the experience of watching the pageant precisely mirrors what the deepest winter months are like. Stuck in the house with nothing to do but watch telly, and what’s on telly is absolutely, unrelentingly, inescapably cat.

There are things to like about the Rose of Tralee. Being a lovely girl is something to be praised and celebrated. The nation has a surfeit of lovely girls, thank God, and they are a priceless commodity of which we can never have too much. And it’s nice to see the fathers in the audience who live abroad seeing their daughters’ connection with Ireland confirmed, which means a huge amount to them of course.

But dear God, eight hours the thing lasts for! Eight hours cruelly stretched over two nights, like Father Murphy upon the rack. Could they not just do a half-hour highlights piece like Oireachtas Report?

Not that anybody watches the Rose of Tralee, of course. Oh no. One no more admits to watching the Rose of Tralee than one admits to voting Fianna Fáil, going to Mass or reading the Sunday Independent. Yet all these things still seem to get done, somehow.

Ask ten women what they think of the Rose of Tralee and eight of them will deliver a withering look, tell you they couldn’t be bothered with the Rose of Tralee, and return to whatever it was they were doing before you enquired.

Gentlemen interested in investigating the veracity or otherwise of these claims may conduct the following experiment next week: just as the horror is unfolding on the TV, and Daithí Ó Sé is asking a lady from New Zealand if she likes a nice bit of hake for the dinner, remind your darling that you have Tight Lines, Sky Sports’ excellent fly-fishing show on the Sky+, and maybe now would be a good time to watch it together, as a couple.

Next thing you know, your morning and evening star has leapt from the coach, wrenched your arm half-way up your back and catapulted you out into the garden in a move expertly copied from the matchless cinema of Ms Angelina Jolie. And as you sit there, in the dark with the cats who live under the shed, you will know exactly who’s watching the Rose of Tralee loyally every year. But you will still struggle to understand just what is the attraction of eight indeterminable hours of soft old chat and barefoot Irish dancing.

Back in the day, the Rose of Tralee had a sister competition. It was the Calor Kosangas Housewife of the Year competition and, as its excellent Facebook tribute page points out, it was a competition for Roses who had grown old.

Both the Rose of Tralee and Housewife of the Year were presented by Gay Byrne, and both were aimed at the same lovely girl demographic. A lovely girl cannot exist without her diligent mother, and it is any lovely girl’s destiny to become that same diligent mother and home-maker herself as the great wheel of the world rolls around.

Time has caught up with the Housewife of the Year but the Rose of Tralee rolls relentlessly on, even though there is now no grown-up show for the Roses to enter. The most to hope for is a guest panellist spot on Midday on TV3. Unlike the housewives, the ladies spend very little time among the pots and pans on Midday on TV3, but my goodness gracious, you really can’t fault them for gas.

Ryan Tubridy to Host the Late Late Show

The really astonishing thing, of course, is that The Late Late Show has lasted as long as it has. The very fact it survived under Gay Byrne for thirty-seven years is amazing in itself. But once Byrne retired, RTÉ realised that the brand was so enormous that it simply couldn’t be discontinued. The Late Late Show was drawing in far too much money to even contemplate the idea of Byrne taking it away with him on his new motorcycle.

And so it has marched on, presented by Pat Kenny, for ten years. Ten years! An Spailpín Fánach does not know anyone who enjoyed Pat Kenny’s Late Late Show, and yet the viewing figures were consistently huge. Ten years, and never been kissed.

The Irish nation sat at home in their hundreds of thousands every Friday night, during the most prosperous times the country has ever seen, to watch Pat Kenny pretend to be interested in what some B-list bimbo on some C-list English soap had to say about where she buys her shoes, her take on Martin Heidegger and the influence of phenomenology on his metaphysical theories, and why she loves Mamma Mia!

One of Gay Byrne’s countless gifts was that he had an endless appetite for this sort of stuff. Yes, he delighted in guests like Sir Peter Ustinov or Billy Connolly, but he was equally happy whenever Tom O’Connor popped over from the mainland, with limp jokes about golf sweaters. Deep in the hidden heart of him, is it the case that Gay Byrne was never as happy in his life as when he was interviewing Ken Dodd and the Beatles for Granada TV in the early 1960s? Was everything downhill for him after those impossible peaks?

How Pat Kenny must have despised the countless interviews with someone like Andrew Sachs’ grand-daughter, and her three charming friends. Pat Kenny, whatever else you may say about him, is no daw; RTÉ did a heart monitor survey once in the eighties to see what effect the cameras going live had on their presenters, and Kenny’s never flickered one single beat. Remember him on Today Tonight or doing the elections in the early 1980s, with the hair sprayed in place, and the steely silver specs, grilling Jim Kemmy or Martin O’Donaghue?

What a fall from that to “former EastEnder Letitia Dean talks to Pat about the effect being in the soap had on her life, being at her fittest at 41 and her current stint in the stage version of High School Musical in Dublin.” The horror, the horror.

Gay Byrne seemed to be interested in everybody, even if he wasn’t. That was one of the reasons why the famous Mike Murphy hidden camera sketch was so funny – it was astonishing to see Byrne lose his cool. Whereas Pat Kenny struggles to hide his boredom or his contempt. When Kenny tore up the entry of that lady in a competition who wasn’t impressed with her prize the writing was on the wall. Kenny is returning to current affairs now, and he’ll be much more at home.

And so Ryan Tubridy takes over. Every generation, perhaps, gets the Late Late Show it deserves. It is appropriate that Pat Kenny presented the Late Late during the property boom that is now devouring its own tail – Pat Kenny, who fought the battle of Gorse Hill, and ended up paying over one million Euro for one fifth of an acre of ground.

It’s hard to know what Tubridy will do with the Late Late. Miriam O’Callaghan was the obvious choice. She had the current affairs experience with Prime Time, and her very successful summer chat show proved that she could do light entertainment as well. And yet Tubridy has got the gig instead.

The most successful period of Ryan Tubridy’s career was when he presented a breakfast show on 2FM. He succeeded the Rick and Ruth show, and was succeeded by the incumbents, both productions that make Tubridy’s time seem like Jack Charlton’s reign as Irish soccer manager – gilded fore and aft by what went before and what came after. The rest of Tubridy’s output seems something of a mixed bag, making it hard to judge what the new look Late Late Show will be like.

What Tubridy will do with the Late Late Show is limited by the enormity of the Late Late Show itself. It is as much a part of the nation now as the All-Ireland final or Tayto crisps. What is more certain, however, is that Tubridy is very much of his time. A lot of people were hot and bothered about Kenny’s Late Late GAA tribute. One would almost wish for the GAA to celebrate 126 years next year, just to see what Ryan Tubridy would make of it.

For better or worse, Ryan Tubridy reflects who the Irish are now, and is the person to whom the majority of people aspire. The funniest thing that An Spailpín read in the speculation about who would take over as host of the Late Late Show was a squib in Irish language newspaper Foinse that Mairtín Tom Sheáinín Mac Donncha, presenter of Comhrá on TG4, had emerged as a dark horse candidate. Whatever else happens, Tubridy’s Late Late will not be anything like Máirtín Tom Sheáinín’s might have been. Whether that is a good or bad thing we’ll just have to wait and see.





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