Patrick Kielty on the Late Late Toy Show: 'The key is to go with the flow'
Patrick Kielty pictured during the opening of the 2023 Late Late Toy Show. Picture Andres Poveda / RTÉ̇
The magic of the can be distilled into three words says host, Patrick Kielty: joy, hilarity, and terror.
“What you think is going to happen and what you think you are planning to do will probably change for the better — and maybe sometimes the worst,” he says.
“The work started months ago. Come 9.35pm on December 6, I would say at least 50% of that preparation will go out the window.”
Kielty’s first Toy Show, in December 2023, was regarded as a huge success. It was loosely themed around Will Ferrell’s 2003 Christmas classic .
But it was Kielty’s irrepressibility rather than any second-hand Hollywood glamour that sold it.
When this year’s Toy Show arrives on Friday, December 6, it will mark the 50th anniversary of the Irish institution (and no, Kielty cannot offer any breadcrumbs as to the theme).
The Co Down broadcaster has thrived as host of the Late Late since taking over from Ryan Tubridy.
As a respected comedian, he has brought an irrepressible energy to this huge creaking dreadnought of Irish broadcasting.
At the same time, his experience of tackling serious subjects with his Channel 4 documentaries about the Troubles means he is well-equipped for the heavier side of the gig, too.
And, when it comes to the anarchy of working with kids, his experiences as a parent to two young children are invaluable.
“We have a six and a eight-year-old. When you have young kids prepped for the hilarious brutal honesty that can potentially come out of stuff,” he muses. “The key to it is to go with the flow.”
Kielty has worked with the BBC and Channel 4 and currently presents a BBC Radio 5 Saturday morning show, while his wife Cat Deeley hosts Fox’s in the US and, last February, took over from Holly Willoughby as full-time anchor of ITV’s .
RTÉ is often compared to these global broadcasters and – however, unfairly, given the differences in resourcing – found wanting. What has Kielty’s experience been?
“The Toy Show is a real good example of this — very few broadcasters around the world have the set up that RTÉ has,” he says.
“You go into RTÉ, there’s a basement full of costumes. If you write a joke on a Wednesday and you need a prop for it, it’s already there.”
Having those resources at your fingertips sets Montrose apart from other broadcasters, he says.
“If you look at what’s happened at the BBC. The BBC has moved out their TV Centre. ITV used to have studios that are now flats. Look, nothing’s perfect. Criticism… a lot of the time is valid, in all walks of life. I’ll happily take it on the chin. Sometimes it’s useful to stop and go there are things here, like the Toy Show, that are unique.”
Kielty has had several viral moments since taking over as Late Late host.
A recent rant about politics in Ireland by actor Colm Meaney rippled around social media while Sinn Féin failed to see the funny side of a gag about the TV show that poked gentle fun at Mary Lou McDonald.
Because Ireland is so much smaller than Britain, where Kielty has made his career, is there more of a sense of being under additional scrutiny? He isn’t sure he sees it that way.
“The Late Late always had a more immediate response.
“The DNA of the Late Late Show… it’s not a pure-bred show. It’s an absolute hybrid. Try to explain to somebody what the Late Late is… there’s going to be joking, someone’s going to sing a song... and then that thing at the end the other night with Christy Moore [where Moore performed and talked movingly about the plight of those struggling with the cost of living]. A friend of mine watched that. His wife isn’t from Ireland. She hadn’t seen Christy Moore before. She was like,’ oh my God this is amazing’. There’s a uniqueness around the show.”
Unique it may be, but the Late Late Show also pops up in the strangest of places.
Kielty was reminded of this when he was invited to the Vatican last summer to meet the Pope.
It was part of a strange sort of Pontifical outreach to the global comedy community.
Also present were fellow Irishmen Tommy Tiernan and Ardal O’Hanlon — and American comics such as Stephen Colbert, host of the Late Late Show’s soundalike franchise, .
“We turned up. You’re outside the Vatican, it was an early morning gig. We all had to be there at six in the morning. The Vatican is a great leveller in terms of showbiz. If you’d have met any of these people at any party in a showbiz world, you wouldn’t have got near Stephen Colbert. Everyone had to line up. There was a woman with a clipboard, like in a night club, checking names.”
The list was a who’s who of international comedic talent, he continues. “Chris Rock was standing there, Whoopi Goldberg, Jimmy Fallon, Conan O’Brien, Julia Louis-Dreyfus. It was mad. So we went in and he [the Pope] read this speech. Afterwards we were coming out. There was a reception — I was at the bar with this woman. She heard me order and said, ‘oh, you’re from Ireland’. Clearly she was American.
"I said, ‘I host a show, it’s called the Late Late Show’. She said ‘you need to meet my brother’. She turned around — and Stephen Colbert is there. She goes: ‘Stephen, this is Patrick… And he said ‘Patrick Kielty, the host of the Late Late Show in Ireland’. I said, ‘wow Stephen, I’m delighted to meet you… I didn’t think you’d know who I was’.
"And he said, ‘of course I do Patrick. Every time I try googling one of my clips now the algorithm throws up one of yours’.”
Kielty breaks into a smile. “He’s [watching Toy Show clips] trying to work out why Gay Byrne is on a battery operated car.”
- The Late Late Toy Show airs this Friday, December 6 on RTÉ One at 9.35pm
