Tubridy a blooming success with Roses

FOR the Rose of Tralee devotees, there was much interest in how the young whippersnapper Ryan Tubridy would fare.

And after two nights of interviewing smiling Roses, proud parents and embarrassed escorts, the verdict on the new presenter was generally positive.

The Roses gave Tubridy the thumbs-up with the stunning Dublin contestant Orla Tobin, 22, describing him as a natural on television.

“He’s an absolute dote and he got to know all of the Roses really well. He’s a brilliant presenter, who’s witty and should have been on television before now,” she said.

“He’s great at making us all relax and I’ve spoken to him on countless occasions over the last week,” she said.

Tubridy’s brief was to take the Rose of Tralee away from the ‘Lovely Girls’ image, so successfully lampooned in Fr Ted, and to introduce it to a new audience.

He may have partly succeeded in the latter aim but it can be hard to steer the Roses away from talking about careers, escorts and how nice the sponsors are.

Tubridy tried several times to ask the New Orleans Rose, Kathleen Duckworth, about the Mardi Gras festival, where women are well known for baring their breasts in return for beads. But there was no fear of her straying into even mildly controversial territory. “You wear the beads around your neck and put them in the attic and bring them out next year,” Ms Duckworth said emphatically.

Tubridy’s performance was certainly energetic.

He was firing quips while the Roses talked, hopping around the stage and waving his hands at the audience. How does he ever sit still in a radio studio?

The public appeared to be enthusiastic about Tubridy’s debut performance in Tralee, with an extra 49,000 viewers tuning in on the opening night.

“I thought he was very nervous at the start, but kept getting better as the show went on. He’s very funny and different to other presenters,” Johnny O’Sullivan from Ardfert, Co Kerry said.

The man himself was glad it was over.

“I hope it went well, you never know with these things and you’re always asking ‘did they like it? Were they laughing or not?’ I’m relieved more than anything else,” Tubridy said after the show.

His wife Ann-Marie watched the show from The Dome while his four-year-old daughter Ella kept an eye on her Dad on the TV.