Four Late Late Show talking points, including a frosty reception for Piers Morgan
Patrick Kielty's interview with Piers Morgan was particularly frosty
Award-winning Irish writer, producer and actress Sharon Horgan has been on a worldwide promotional tour for the latest season of her show ‘Bad Sisters,’ and she made time to stop off at Donnybrook studios on Friday.
The second series of the hit show has received mixed reviews, and Horgan admitted to being “nervous” about the reaction, particularly from an Irish audience.
Anyone who has watched the show will know there’s a particularly shocking twist early on in the latest instalment, and host Patrick Kielty was keen to ask Horgan just how hard it was to write.
“It was really difficult,” she wrote. “We went sort of back and forth on whether we were actually going to do it or not.
“We do a terrible thing,” she acknowledges, but says it was important to her to be “brutally honest about what can happen when you're in a terrible abusive relationship”.
"I love the end of the first season, but it sort of had a, you know, perfect ending.
“I was really interested in telling the story of what the reality is of a woman like that [who] is vulnerable and mistreated for so many years, who's been very isolated by that relationship, and what happens when she finds herself in a terrible situation and she can't reach out to her family, because she's so used to doing things on her own."
In a lighter moment, the mum-of-two shared the story behind what happened when Prince Edward, the UK's Duke of Edinburgh, visited the Apple TV studios where Horgan and her Garvey sister co-stars were filming.
“We heard he was coming down, that he was on his way, but we didn’t know how far away he was... we thought it would be hilarious... we just got really bratty... and we started singing the Irish national anthem.” That went down a treat with the live studio audience.
There was a noticeable charge on stage as Piers Morgan sat down for a chat with Kielty.
The controversial British broadcaster started the interview by explaining his YouTube show 'Piers Morgan Uncensored'.
"We get people on both sides," he said. "Smart people, [I] don't like dummies. You can't come on, unfortunately.."
The host of the let that one slide, but throughout the interview pushed back on some of Morgan's claims - including the broadcaster's insistence that his views are not controversial, but "common sense".
At one stage, when Morgan repeated that Kielty might categorise some of his views as controversial, the Co Down man shot back "I categorise some of your views as wrong" to cheers from the audience.
Asked which of his views he'd categorise as controversial, Kielty suggested Morgan's support of newly re-elected and former US President, Donald Trump.
"I didn't support him, I said he'd win," Morgan responded.
"If he called you in the morning, would you take a job?" Kielty fired back.
"No, I wouldn't," Morgan insisted, "I am a journalist, I don't take jobs with administrations in government. Absolutely not."
Elsewhere in the conversation, Morgan revealed he once heard Trump listening to Sinéad O'Connors 'Nothing Compares 2 U' - which went down like a lead balloon with the audience - and also disclosed he is "actually Irish".
"I've got Galway roots," he said, "so I do feel like I'm one of you, even if you'd rather I wasn't."
Russell Kane also appeared on the show, promoting his upcoming tour dates in Ireland next May.
Presently, the English comedian has shows in Dublin, Killarney and Waterford, but he revealed he’s mad to add a Cork date to his tour next summer.
“You can’t offend them!” he claimed. And perhaps, to test his theory, followed it up by doing his impersonation of a Leeside accent.
“It’s like someone's put spanners in a cement truck!” he exclaimed. We're not sure how many tickets that will have shifted...
Cork singer-songwriter Allie Sherlock appeared on the show to perform her new song ‘How Love Works’.
The Douglas native, who has over 14m followers on social media, is a regular on Dublin’s Grafton Street where she often draws a significant crowd while singing covers and her own original material.
Tonight, her voice was spellbounding as she sat at a baby grand piano and sang of ‘wanting to know how love works’. Well worth a rewatch.
