Toy Show — The Musical: 'We had a silly dream and now it’s reality'

'Three years ago, two of the producers behind The Late Late Toy Show had an idea – to bring the magic of the TV programme to the stage. Ahead of opening night, they meet Rowena Walsh.'

Katherine Drohan and Jane Murphy: Producers of Toy Show - The Musical, at RTE HQ, Dublin. Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins Photos

Almost three years ago, Jane Murphy and Katherine Drohan decided to take a gamble. The two worked together in RTÉ and they approached the station’s powers-that-be with a unique proposal. They wanted to take the magic of the one-night-only Late Late Toy Show and turn it into a musical.

It seemed ridiculously ambitious, but the RTÉ hierarchy loved their idea and Jane and Katherine, then producers on The Late Late Show, developed a two-year plan. Then Covid hit, and the pair were focused on the challenges of delivering the flagship weekly chat show without an audience. As Jane says, they could have dropped the idea a hundred times. “There were a hundred excuses, a hundred reasons to park this and move on.”