Saturday with Brian Redmond: If I’m listening to Thin Lizzy, God help the dancers on Sunday evening
Brian Redmond, judge of Dancing with the Stars
We have a daughter who goes to gymnastics and a son who goes to Taekwondo, so we are always up early on a Saturday whether we’d like to have a lie in or not.
The first thing I’ll do is moan and groan about aches and pains and make the involuntary clicks and cracks that someone of 47 years of age makes who’s had a full life. Then I will head straight to the coffee machine.
Midweek, I could have six or seven coffees a day, on a Saturday it could be less but I’ll certainly have two or three coffees over the course of the morning.
Midweek I’ll usually just grab a supermarket pastry from the kitchen but during DWTS I will have a toasted bagel with cream cheese to keep me going.
I’ll do the kids’ drop offs and then at this time of the year it falls to my wife to pick up the pieces as I’ll be gone from around 11am.
I spend a lot of time during the week listening to news shows in the car because I need to keep on top of politics and current affairs for my day job as a radio host.
On Saturdays at this time of year it’s different though - I have to reprogramme my brain. Driving up to the DWTS studios I prefer to listen to music.
Depending on my mood it could be anything from cheesy pop to Thin Lizzy. If I’m listening to Thin Lizzy on a Saturday morning God help the dancers on a Sunday evening.
I don’t know what it is - whether the music influences my mood or whether it’s a reflection of my mood - it’s probably the latter.
It wouldn’t be unusual for me to arrive 30 or 40 minutes before my call time. I like to be early because I think it’s respectful to others, I also think it gives you time.
I like to spend time with people - whether that is prepping for my radio show or spending time with my fellow judges and the cast and crew on DWTS.
Chatting to the crew is a great barometer as to how things are going.
I genuinely think our crew is amazing - they have a massive show to produce and they have to really look after the dancers and celebrities.
Those of us on screen have a responsibility to ourselves and the audience but also to our talented crew who bust their guts to make sure everything is perfect, from the hair to costumes to the lighting and sound.
If we let them down on a Sunday they can’t recover from that. They set the standard that we have to live up to.
I love sitting with cast and crew for lunch because you learn so much about what’s going on, pick up on stories from the celebs and their pro dancers - that’s all part of the job.
It’s also important for me, given the fact that I am one of the more critical judges. By spending a bit of time with the celebrities we develop a bit of a rapport so that they understand where I am coming from on a Sunday night when I’m giving my comments and scores.
If they only ever hear the critique that’s the only thing they’ll think I’m capable of but if they get to know me a bit they will realise that it’s my responsibility.
There’s no point in me telling them they're fabulous when they're not - the audience at home is far too educated - they’ve been watching Strictly for 20 years, they’ve been watching DWTS for eight years - they know what’s good and if they don’t have someone reflecting that they’ll feel short-changed.
Saturdays are a run-through for Sunday - that means costumes, checking the running order of dances, checking if there are any changes or special themes like Orchestra Week.
We are never on set for the dress rehearsals - that's very important. The first time we see the couples perform is on Sunday night.
Having Karen Byrne as a judge this season is going to be interesting. I’ve known Karen for almost 20 years as a young competitor and as a pro dancer.
I think it’s brilliant that she’s on the judging panel. She’s the only one of us who has been responsible for getting celebrities around that dance floor for the past seven years so it will be interesting to see how she adapts to the role change.
At this time of year there is just too much going on with working Monday to Friday and then ten weeks of weekends too.
I can’t afford to burn the candle at both ends.
We’ll probably watch something on Netflix. I love sport, particularly soccer, so I’ll be hoping the matches aren’t clashing with the live shows.
For those few weeks of the year I’m at the beck and call of the glitterball.
I’ll go to bed around 10 or 10.30pm. I try to stay off the phone as much as possible at this time of year.
There is so much activity around DWTS in the papers and online that if I was to stay in contact with it all I could lose three or four hours in the evening.
If I’m not on my phone I’ll fall asleep almost instantly.
- Brian Redmond presents The KCLR Daily weekdays from 10am on KCLR96fm and is a judge on Dancing with the Stars, Sundays at 6.30pm on RTÉ One
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