Learning Points: This year we need the Toy Show more than ever

Sophie Barnes Aabo speaking to Ryan Tubridy on last year's The Late Late Toy Show. As Ryan chatted to her about living with a sick brother, she became emotional and started to cry. Ryan’s gentle embrace and reassurance that, ‘it’s healthy to cry’ spoke to the entire nation. Picture: Andres Poveda

There are subtle differences between cultures that often remain unspoken. 

Sometimes, when those differences emerge, we see something about ourselves that we were comfortably unaware of. Like, I remember the first time I realised I had a Cork accent. I was a teenager working on a building site in London, I asked the foreman, "Is the work always the same?’

What came out was, "Is de wark always de same, boy?" Oh, that old stony grey soil of Cork.

I recall another penetrating insight I had in my early 20s when I was dating a French girl. I was regaling her with a memory from my childhood about our summers to Normandy, France. 

I was obviously trying to impress her and show her we were a pro-French family with our French summer holidays but it didn’t really work out that way. 

I can still picture the look on her face as I explained how one such holiday, and I use the term loosely, was marred because my mother had become tormented with the thought she forgot to turn off the immersion. It stalked our holiday, at the beach, in the pool, pizza dripping from my mouth, gulping my third Diablo Fraise, a look would come over my mother’s face, like she was a contestant on Master Mind desperately searching for the answer, ‘I did, I forgot to turn it off,’ and peace would collapse into panic. 

‘What is Immersion?’ My Parisian petite amie asked. What is immersion? I thought everyone suffered under the oppressive weight of the immersion, not just Irish families. I felt a little resentful that she had lived in blissful ignorance, that her summers were lived with such immersion abandon. 

On that same evening we sat down to watch The Late Late Toy Show, halfway through she got up and declared, ‘c’est nul’, it sucks! 

I knew the relationship was doomed to failure. The cultural differences, the divide that separated us was too great. The immersion I could just about tolerate but dissing The Toy show, it was akin to sacrilege.

And so the annual Irish Christmas klaxon will sound tomorrow evening at 9:30pm. It’s hard to imagine the build-up to Christmas without The Toy Show. 

As is the way with many successful ventures The Toy Show started out as a little adjunct at the end of The Late Late Show in 1975 to offer bewildered parents support managing their children’s Santa lists. But it’s become a national treasure. In fact, over the years it has become far more important than just a show that places products for sale. 

Over the years, The Toy Show has reflected the changing values of our small island. Last year, in particular, saw the show reach new heights of social commentary. It was a Toy Show about inclusion, about diversity and overcoming adversity. 

This year, the pressure on Ryan is huge as the nation, more than ever, looks to that perennial favourite to light the way and cheer up a nation that has had to endure so much. 

If your family is like mine, your children have probably been tormenting you all week to put up the decorations so ‘the house will look Christmassy for The Toy Show’. It is hard to explain how important this show has become to us all. It has become a part of our collective consciousness, a part of who we are. That is what my French girlfriend missed all those years ago. It wasn’t just a Toy Show, it was us being reflected back through our screens.

Over the years, we have witnessed some truly magnificent moments. Gay Byrne being rescued by a knight in 1992, or who could forget Pat Kenny’s entrance on an elephant in 2002. Like Hannibal over the Alps but a little more awkward he lumbered into the studio doing his very best to seem nonchalant while terrified. 

We have also been introduced to some real characters too, the horologist John Joe Brennan in 2009 stands out as one of the most interesting characters we have met on Irish TV. 

Yet, for me, last year's interview with young Sophie Barnes Aabo captured the significance of the show and why it’s in our DNA. As Ryan chatted to her about living with a sick brother, she became emotional and started to cry. Ryan’s gentle embrace and reassurance that, ‘it’s healthy to cry’ spoke to the entire nation. 

This year, we need Ryan to speak to us again, we need him to reassure us next year will be better than the last. The message must be positive. 

That is why so many of our diaspora will be tuning in from all over the world. We are all waiting, one more sleep. No pressure, Ryan.