Late Late Toy Show FAQ: What time does the show start? Where is Tubs? Is there an ISL version?
Patrick Kielty will host Friday night's Late Late Toy Show. Picture: Evan Doherty
The Late Late Toy Show will air on Friday night at 9.35pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player. Although the regular Late Late has cut its episode running time this season, the Toy Show is expected to run until midnight, meaning the little ones (and their grown-ups) will have earned a big sleep-in on Saturday morning after their marathon viewing.
Yes, the Toy Show will be available on the RTÉ Player internationally. It will stream live so the Irish everywhere from Australia to Zimbabwe can tune in. In 2023, a global audience from over 139 countries tuned in to watch the Toy Show.
Additionally, the best bits will be available after the show on The Late Late Show’s YouTube channel, including Santa's special visit to the Holy Family School for the Deaf in Cabra.
The theme for this year’s Toy Show is inspired by the Christmas movie Elf, one of Patrick Kielty's personal favourites. "It's a big movie in our house. We're going to have a lot of fun," he told press at a Toy Show preview event in RTÉ earlier this week.
Kielty, who will be joined by Santa, Papa Elf, and a host of workshop elves, knows the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear, and this year’s show will have over 170 performers and toy testers from across Ireland, with the youngest elf aged just four years old.
Last year’s Toy Show took us to Oz in a set inspired by The Wizard of Oz in what turned out to be Ryan Tubridy’s final Toy Show as host.
This year comedian and Late Late Show host Patrick Kielty will take the reins of the Toy Show. Speaking to the Irish Examiner in a recent interview he said he plans to just be himself around the toy testers and performers.
“I don’t think you can play The Toy Show. Kids smell people that are playing them. That doesn’t work,” he said.
“I am lucky enough to have two young kids. And you know, I think you have just got to be yourself. You can’t go in with too much planned, thinking that this is how something is going to play out, because on a live show on a Friday night with grown-ups, a lot of the time it doesn’t play out the way you think. So if you want to add kids into the mix...
“I think it’s about enjoying it. And if you can enjoy it yourself, then hopefully other people will [too].”
Last week, Ryan Tubridy announced he is moving to London to take up a job as a radio presenter with Virgin Radio. He will helm the mid-morning show on Virgin Radio from 10am to 1pm Monday to Friday from early January 2024, joining the weekday on-air crew.
The presenter left RTÉ after it was revealed that the station under-reported the salary paid to Tubridy and failed to disclose €345,000 of additional payments to him between 2017 and 2022.
On Toy Show night this year, the ‘Toy Man’, as many children came to know him, will be switching on the Christmas lights in Clifden in Co Galway.
Yes. The Late Late Toy Show with Irish Sign Language (ISL) will broadcast live on the RTÉ News Channel and RTÉ Player. ISL is Ireland's third official language and an ISL version of the Toy Show will also be available to stream shortly after the live broadcast.
Deaf presenters Sarah-Jane O'Regan and Jason Maguire will present the Toy Show through ISL, working with hearing interpreters Amanda Coogan and Ciara Grant, on the RTÉ News Channel and RTÉ Player.
Yes. The RTÉ Toy Show Appeal is back for its fourth year to improve the lives of children and their families by funding essential support, health, wellbeing, play, and creativity initiatives. To date it has raised €17.5m and provided support to 226 different charities and given 359 grants over that time. It supported 147 different children's charities last year alone and is estimated to have helped over 1.1 million annually since its inception.
Donations can be made via www.rte.ie/toyshowappeal and by the Revolut app.
