TV Review: Dermot Bannon is telly gold — he could host the Late Late Show except he'd end up interviewing himself

And the beautifully judged segment on the Ballinadee double-decker bus conversion is a celebration of Patrick McCarthy more than anything else

Dermot visits the McCarthy siblings in Ballinadee: They want Dermot's advice and he isn't slow to offer it

You can see the thinking behind Dermot Bannon’s Super Small Spaces (RTÉ One Sunday and RTÉ Player.) Here’s the man who persuaded an entire nation to break through from the kitchen to the living room because open-plan was a sign that you were on-board for Modern Ireland. Along comes Covid and now your home-office is in the same space as your child’s virtual class-room. This is a very bad thing and Dermot is to blame. Something had to be done.

I’m not sure his latest, two-part TV show will be enough. The idea is that Dermot goes around the country, talking to people who made the most of a small space. The problem is he didn’t talk to anyone who wedged a tiny desk into the corner of their daughter’s bedroom so they could continue to work through the pandemic — this would have been funny and real.

Dermot Bannon sees more houses that have been changed by the pandemic in Dermot Bannon's Super Small Spaces

But property shows don’t like funny and real, not really . They tend to go for designers with interesting hairstyles who managed to get a lot of light into a skinny house in Rathmines. So Dermot meets one of th o se, along with a few other creative types who do interesting things with leather. It feels like a property show from another time.

It would have been a total miss if it wasn’t for the McCarthy family in Ballinadee, County Cork. When Dermot first meets them, they have set about converting an old double-decker bus into a space for rent, in honour of their father Patrick who died by suicide last year. You can sense the sadness and loss in their faces, but it never edges out their infectious sense of fun and determination to draw something good out of a tragic situation.

They also draw something good out of Dermot Bannon. Unlike the other spaces in this first episode, where Dermot is going along to say ‘I like what you’ve done here’, the McCarthy bus conversion has some conflict in it. They want Dermot’s advice and he isn’t slow to offer it. Better still, they aren’t slow to ignor e it, like when they go ahead and pull down an old wall next to the bus, even though Dermot had taken a shine to it.

The McCarthy family from Cork and their bus which features in Dermot Bannon's Super Small Spaces

This switches on the Slightly Cranky Dermot that we grew to love in Room To Improve. There is genuine banter rather than clunky chats in a clever, boring space in Rathmines. The bits with the McCarthy family are beautifully judged — Dermot never gets too mawkish, it’s a celebration of Patrick McCarthy more than anything else.

They end up with a charming and cool bus conversion that looks like a great way to experience the south Cork countryside. I ended up with a feeling that Dermot Bannon could host The Late Late Show at some point in the future. He’s telly gold, absolutely brilliant here at managing light and shade in the same story. The only problem is he’s consistently one of the best guests they have on The Late Late. So he’d probably end up interviewing himself.