Ryan Tubridy<\/a> and how he juggles a busy career in broadcasting, comedy and acting between Ireland and the UK.<\/p>\nDecember is here and it\u2019s nearly Toy Show time \u2013 does this mark the start of Christmas for you?<\/p>\n
To be honest I am delighted the Toy Show is back airing in December. Sticking the tree up in November always felt a wee bit early. I can definitely now sign up to it being Christmas time and decorating the tree when the Toy Show rolls around.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re gearing up to present your third Toy Show, can you believe how quickly it has come around?<\/p>\n
I really can\u2019t, to be honest. It very much feels like yesterday I was running around RT\u00c9 and people were very nervously asking me how I felt hosting my first one. What I didn\u2019t realise was that they were nervous about me messing up the Toy Show [laughs]. It feels like a long time since that first one, but it also feels like yesterday.<\/p>\n
Do you still feel pressure and nerves as host of the most watched TV show of the year in the country?<\/p>\n
Not so much now. The thing I always find is, when you\u2019ve got kids yourself, you know how ideas can go right or wrong when kids get together. I\u2019ve been on enough sides of football and GAA pitches to know that you can plan as much as you want, but these things will go their own way! I never really put that pressure on myself. For me, the key was to always get brilliant kids \u2013 and there\u2019s never a shortage of those \u2013 and then some fun toys, put it together. You can do a running order and think you know where it\u2019s going, but it very rarely does.<\/p>\n
How much say do you have in the creative process?<\/p>\n
The brilliant thing is we have a team who have worked on this show for many years and know what items work and what potentially doesn\u2019t. What\u2019s lovely about it is that they involve me in the process. The production team will make the decision on who is on the show \u2013 I host the show, I don\u2019t produce it. But it\u2019s very much collaborative. Whenever they find someone who is a bit special and tell me, \u201cyou need to see this,\u201d it\u2019s exciting. The Toy Show team even has their own office with a lock on the door in RT\u00c9.<\/p>\n
Are Milo and James impressed by the fact you host the Toy Show and your job in general?<\/p>\n
I mean it\u2019s a cool thing if dad can get them near the toys! There\u2019s a very limited level of credibility that goes there. They were very impressed last year when we had the Olympians running through Smyths Toy Superstores \u2013 which is just the Mecca, Croke Park, Wembley Stadium, for kids. They were stunned the kids could go in and pick whatever toys they wanted. The main game that\u2019s currently happening is trying to find out the theme of this year\u2019s show. I\u2019ve gone into full interrogation-you-will-not-break-me mode. The first year, the idea for them was that I was hosting a toy show. Second year, I was doing The Toy Show. Now they are more in the know, the onion sort of unpeels. We\u2019ll be in the car doing the school run and the question of the theme comes up. They think they can catch me out now and have started working as a team. I had a prosthetics fitting a couple of weeks ago, I told them and they immediately asked if it was for the Toy Show. I then realised even telling them that was probably too much. They veer from being impressed to wanting to know more, which is always dangerous.<\/p>\n
Is it a tradition that they come over and watch it live on the Friday night or do you watch it all together?<\/p>\n
I like to watch it with them. Last year I got a kick out of seeing their faces watching me dressed as Kevin from Home Alone. I think that\u2019s the plan again for this year, we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n
How will you celebrate Christmas this year?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t really know what\u2019s happening there. It\u2019ll just be the usual, family getting together and that sort of thing. Generally I find everything starts too early. Once the Toy Show is done and you get that out of the way, you can think further down the line.<\/p>\n
Do you have any Christmas traditions?<\/p>\n
Tradition is normally Dundrum. There is a very nice local pub down the road. I live outside the village, more in the townlands, so this would be more the bar that the farmers would drink in. They open every Christmas morning for one hour. There is normally a walk down there for a sneaky pint before someone tries to burn the turkey. So that\u2019s a tradition I love to follow every year.<\/p>\n
You took over the Late Late Show from Ryan Tubridy in 2023 with a three-year contract. Would you like to stay on as host?<\/p>\n
I love the job, it\u2019s no secret in saying that the gig means so much to me, in terms of me growing up and watching it. Nothing is forever, and I\u2019ve always said I\u2019m a lighthouse keeper. The show is bigger than the host and there were hosts before me and there will be hosts after me. None of these things are set in stone.<\/p>\n
Have you gotten into a routine with hosting the Late Late and juggling your other jobs?<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t had a routine in my life since I started working in this space when I was 21. The joke is always, \u201cWhere is the bag?\u201d And the bag is the bag at the bottom of the bed. It doesn\u2019t matter whether you are at home or at a hotel, that bag is always there, kind of half packed, because you\u2019re always going somewhere. I\u2019ve always liked that wee bit of unpredictability. But this is probably the most routine I\u2019ve had in my life, in terms of having a show you know you\u2019re doing on Fridays and planning stuff around it. But there\u2019s going to be more stand-up to come, I\u2019d love to do more acting and a bit of writing too. There are all different bits and pieces in the pipeline.<\/p>\n
How does your working week look with commuting between the UK and Ireland?<\/p>\n
There is no solid routine in terms of the Late Late, especially at this time of year. All bets are off between shooting Toy Show adverts, doing different fittings and other things. The working week is very much what is required for the show that specific week, and at this time of year it\u2019s hand on deck.<\/p>\n
Are you more recognised in public since taking over the show?<\/p>\n
100%. For the first season I kept my head down and didn\u2019t really go out. There was a point where I was out for a night in Dublin and was weirdly shocked by the amount of people that I bumped into. Loads of people watch and talk about the show. I was over in Mayo earlier this year and just being out and about, you do notice it more. I was walking through Connolly Station, because I sometimes get the train down from Newry as my house in Dundrum is close by, and I get the older people recognising me and now I\u2019m also getting kids doing the double take at me. The first year I hosted the Toy Show, they didn\u2019t have a clue who I was. Now it\u2019s happening loads with kids in the last few weeks. Season one would\u2019ve been the parents tapping the kids to say, \u201cThat\u2019s the guy who does the Toy Show,\u201d and now it\u2019s the other way around. It\u2019s fun when stuff like that happens.<\/p>\n
Did you ever reach out to Pat Kenny or Ryan Tubridy for advice?<\/p>\n
No. I was lucky I had done a couple of series of chat shows on BBC One. The brilliant thing about Pat and Ryan<\/a> is that they would never dream of patronising you with advice for the show. Everybody has to make the show what they want to be. It would be interesting to sit down with them now that I\u2019m established and have a chat about what we may have in common, things nobody else knows, because it\u2019s such a small club of people who can talk about it. But no, there was never any advice beforehand.<\/p>\nYou thanked viewers at home for their support after a difficult year for you at the top of the first episode of the season back in September. Is there a sense of community between you and the audience?<\/p>\n
100%. From the get go with this show, the amount of people who have been in my corner and the goodwill that has come my way, there is definitely no other show in the world like it in terms of the relationship that you and your audience have with each other. People are very protective of the show. There is lots of goodwill towards me. But people will tell me what they like and what they don\u2019t like. That\u2019s when you know there is a sense of community around it, when people talk to you the way family would. People will say to me, \u201cPaddy, you\u2019re doing very well \u2013 I didn\u2019t like that, but I thought this was good\u201d. Honest discourse is always good.<\/p>\n
What has been your highlight as host of the Late Late Show so far?<\/p>\n
I mean, getting to sit three feet away from Christy Moore singing Viva La Quinta Brigada was a weird, surreal thing. As a kid watching him sit with Gay Byrne on the telly singing the same song, that was a wonderful pinch me moment.<\/p>\n
Richard Osman recently said on The Rest Is Entertainment podcast that you\u2019d be brilliant on Celebrity Traitors \u2013 would you do it?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think I would be as good as he potentially thinks! It is interesting. A lot of people were watching that show and when you see how various people are coming out of it\u2026 I think they may have a slightly harder task booking for season two than season one on that one. That\u2019s just my thoughts. Alan Carr was brilliant, but with all of those shows you are a slave to the edit. I hosted Fame Academy with Claudia Winkleman for a couple of seasons. We\u2019re due to catch up soon so I will be interested to get the scoop on it from her.<\/p>\n
You also hosted the first series of Love Island, so you know your reality TV. Were you ever offered to do Strictly, I\u2019m A Celebrity or any shows like that in the UK?<\/p>\n
Lots of offers come in, but I think hosting is the right place to be on those shows.<\/p>\n
The New Year is around the corner, do you make any resolutions in January?<\/p>\n
I really don\u2019t. I used to try and fail miserably. The more you build these things up, the more you build yourself up to fail. The other problem is that there are a lot of Kielty birthdays in January. People ask if I\u2019m doing Dry January and I\u2019m really not. My eldest son\u2019s birthday is on the 11th, my brother\u2019s on the 15th, my other brother\u2019s is on the 25th and I\u2019m on the 31st. So the idea that there\u2019s going to be less cake and Guinness in the month of January doesn\u2019t really work. I tend to push all of that talk down the road and say, \u201cWe\u2019ll talk about it at Lent\u201d. And by the time Lent comes around you hope people have forgotten you said that [laughs]. I tend not to be that type of person.<\/p>\n
This interview originally appeared in the December 2025 issue of RSVP Magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the December issue of RSVP, we caught up with Late Late Show host Patrick Kielty to talk…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,23061,9034,6085,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-241983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-late-late-show","12":"tag-patrick-kielty","13":"tag-rte","14":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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