Five Late Late Show talking points: Miriam’s toilet talk, Emma’s funeral gossip, and Rick Astley’s Guinness love
Patrick Kielty on The Late Late Show.
The “unapologetically woke” Miriam Margolyes was first up.
Ahead of her appearance at the Cork Opera House on Monday, Miriam got straight to the point, explaining how her new book was perfect for reading while on the loo.
"It's not for the coffee table, or for kids, don't leave it anywhere where kids can read it!", she advised.
"I think, every day we need a bowel movement, it's absolutely essential - this will assist it."
However, she also shared a flatulence-related story involving the Terminator himself.
While filming a scene alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger, Miriam explained that she found herself in a rather compromising position.
She said: "He farted in my face because I let one out in rehearsal but I was on the ground being killed by him with a glass table slicing me. He did it deliberately! And it was vile!
She added: "Sometimes my farts are smelly and sometimes they're not. You just hope they come alone!"
In true Miriam fashion, the conversation quickly shifted from toilet humour to the topic of Gaza.
Miriam, who is Jewish, was clear with her message to viewers.
"It's very important for people to realise that all Jewish people are not killers. This is a section of the Israeli people, not Jewish people," she said.
"What happened in Gaza is utter wrong, wicked and terrifying."
"Bless you in Ireland who made wonderful demonstrations in their favour to help them feel they were not alone.
Comedian Emma Doran joined the conversation before beginning her tour — a name that nods slightly to Madonna, but mainly to Irish mothers.
She said that growing up, every Irish mammy wanted the house to be immaculate — a phrase that stuck with her.
Emma also revealed the moment she realised she had “made it” as a comedian.
"I walked into Castlebar of all places and in the dressing room there was a "funeral spread of sandwiches."
Cue a fascinated Miriam asking how the Irish conduct funerals.
Fortunately, Emma had plenty of family experience.
"Funerals to Irish people are our Olympics and my Dad taught me at a young age how to conduct myself at funerals," she said.
"He would come back and review the funerals for us. Only at an Irish funeral would you get annoyed if someone was too upset!
"Who's there, who's carrying the coffin? Is there a rift there?"
She added that her father "doesn't appreciate the English funeral."
In a brilliant, unintentional mishap, Emma also asked Miriam — a Jewish woman — if she had ever had a ham sandwich!
Damien Lewis's Band of Brothers
Actor and singer Damian Lewis then joined the trio.
The star said he never realised at the time just how star-studded the cast was.
He said: "I was in a scene, turned around and I'm looking at Andrew Scott, Tom Hardy, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Simon Pegg.
"But I just remember, I mean, they're all wonderful actors, and they've all become big stars, quite rightly. But I remember looking back at the monitor once, and I was just looking at all of them.
"There's this guy there with just this big grin on his face. It's a really sort of film star grin.
I said, if there's any justice in the world that guy, he's got like, two lines off 10 hours of TV, he's going to be a big star.
"And it was Fassbender."
Lewis also spoke about his new war film with Andrew Scott.
tells the story of meteorologist James Stagg (Scott), who had to deliver a weather report to Allied command determining the feasibility of the D-Day landings.
Damian joked that he wasn’t too excited about promoting “a film about the weather.”
Emma was quick to quip that Ireland was the perfect place to do it.
"It's got rugby in it, but it's not a rugby book."
So said Irish prop Andrew Porter about his new autobiography .
Encouraged by his wife to tell his story after appearing in the Netflix documentary , Porter spoke candidly about his mental health struggles following the death of his mother, Wendy, when he was 12.
He recalled starting secondary school the day after her funeral.
"I mean, like starting big school is traumatic enough. So it was a crazy shift in environment, and just everything was up in the air for me and just chaotic at the time," he said.
"I didn't know, I'd say five people going into the year, and I suppose it was just it was incredibly scary time for me, because things were just constantly changing."
That panic, he said, led to an eating disorder.
"It wasn't just like, oh, I wouldn't eat certain foods or anything. It was I fully started, stop eating, full stop," he explained.
"I thought I was doing right by me and trying to figure things out for myself, and which is incredibly hard thing to do when you're when you're that young and you're going through such a traumatic event, I suppose."
The ever-entertaining Rick Astley closed out the evening.
He performed Cry for Help before chatting about his four decades in music — and his love for one Irish drink in particular.
"Listen, I know that's a cliche for you guys, but Guinness does taste better over here," he said.
Rounding out the night, the show returned to toilet talk — this time, Rick’s story about discovering he had a toilet named after him in Japan.
In a bar he co-owned with his wife, a bouncer asked if he had visited the loo yet.
"I said no, not going to. I don't need to go to the loo," he said.
"But he was so insistent and I thought 'bit of a weird question', so I went down.
"It was a full-on Japanese toilet, you know, the ones that are fully automatic and all that and everything.
"So I go in there and as I sort of look around: every single photograph in there was of me and then I realized that they were playing my songs in there as well."
