Craig Doyle says he’s tired of his cheesy boy next door image and wants to show a different side to himself on his new late night show, The Social. He tells Alan Corr about the chat show that’s not a chat show, life as a family man, those TV ads, and his two months covering the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand
You know the drill – experienced TV presenter lands a new chat show, a place where celebrities can plug their book/album/movie/dramatic weight loss. The fact that the TV presenter in question is tall, chiselled, well-spoken Craig Doyle, a man born to be on the box, just makes the story all too familiar.
But hark! Doyle, the professional southside Dubliner with the disarming smile and a nice line in slim-fitting suits, is more than ready to show that he’s got more clubs in his golf bag than that.
For a start, he tells me he didn’t really enjoy his eight weeks behind a desk on primetime Saturday night hosting Tonight with Craig Doyle. The carefully-edited anarchy of The Panel was more his style. “In the past I had to talk to people from soap operas which I wouldn’t have watched or talked to people about books I hadn’t read”, he says. “I’d be, ‘oh that’s marvellous!’ And I had no idea what they were on about. What The Panel did was probably make the bosses in RTÉ realise that I wasn’t just the guy who read the autocue, that I could have a bit of crack and have an opinion and take the piss.”
And have a personality? “Well you know, personality and TV personality shouldn’t really go together . . . I’m been doing TV for a long time and I’ve done loads of big shows and s**t shows and I’ve been doing it so long I’m not even cynical about it any more. I just enjoy and I only want to do things I enjoy. Did I enjoy doing Saturday nights? No, not really my bag. Did I enjoy The Panel? Yes!”
Sitting in the manicured gardens of the Radisson Hotel in the heart of south Dublin, Doyle looks very relaxed after two months covering the Rugby World Cup (one month in the ITV studios in London and one month in New Zealand). Dressed in a light blue denim shirt, a tan jacket, and a tie that shouldn’t work but does, you might say Doyle is back in his natural habitat after a career that has seen him get around a lot. After studying in Maynooth and London, he began working on BBC local radio and went on to present a wide range of shows including Holiday and Tomorrow’s World as well as sports broadcasting on ITV.
At 40, he is already a TV veteran but you can tell he’s relishing his return to Ireland to host The Social, a kind of “chatter show” which begins this week on RTÉ Two. The Social aims to bat back and forth the stories of the moment with a revolving panel of guests, including comedians Sharon Horgan, Keith Farnan, Karl Spain and Mairead Farrell. The set is as informal as the atmosphere and the show aims to take the revolutionary step of actually trying to have the kind of real conversations that Irish people have.
“I love the chats people have in the pub”, Doyle says. “The choice I have to make on this show is: do I say what I really think or do I say what I think is acceptable? I think it will only work if I say what I think and if that annoys people, well so be it. I had that problem with the BBC for many years. That whole tag of ‘boy next door’ and that came from the holiday show I did. The Social will rely on honesty and it helps that we’re not reliant on big showbiz guests. Imagine having a conversation with someone on television! It’s just conversation and it’s not just about them – it’s about Irish people and what they’re discussing, what’s trending on Twitter. I just discovered what that meant the other day. The show is on Twitter, my dog is on Twitter but I won’t be on Twitter!”
Doyle is not the only member of his family who has been bitten by the media bug. His younger sister Suzanne works as a special needs teacher but his older brother Keith (43) works as a journalist for the BBC on Five Live, the Today show and BBC News at Six. When he’s not actually presenting actual programmes, Craig Doyle is still an almost constant fixture on TV, thanks to those adverts for a cable TV company and in the UK, a double-glazing concern. And yes, they are his real parents, Eithne and Sean, he appears with.
“It was funny doing that”, Doyle smiles. “My mum had been diagnosed with cancer shortly before we made the ad and she was going in for her operation the next day and about two weeks before the shoot they told me we’re going to need actors for your mum and dad. Mum was really uptight about the operation, she had bowel cancer, and I said ‘mum, the day before your operation you’re doing this ad’ and it took her mind off it. What was brilliant was that afterwards people weren’t saying ‘how are you Eithne?’ They were saying ‘I saw you in that ad!’ She’s had the all clear since. Dad loved it because they had a food van with loads of puddings all day.”
Is there anything you won’t advertise Craig? “No”, he says laughing. “I’m probably winding myself up doing too many of them but it’s my job, it’s what I do! You get offered money! How arrogant do I have to be not to need that X amount of money? I need it, I’ve got four kids.”
Doyle lives with his four children and his wife Doon in the hills above Enniskerry in Wicklow. He met Doon, who works as an interior designer, through a friend. “I was home in Ireland just before I started on Tomorrow’s World and a mate of mine said to me ‘Doyler! Ya gotta meet this bird! I tried my heart out with her but it isn’t happening.’ She was working in the gym part time before she started college and I went along to the gym. I didn’t even have gym gear with me. I had a pair of shorts and a pair of shoes, I looked like a knob and I met her and I thought ‘holy god!’ I tried to woo her. My wooing technique was clumsy. We were on our third date, the kissing date, and we were in Greystones and we had a drink and we were out walking and as I left, I shook her hand. Complete nerd. She looked at me like I was a real twat and said ‘that was the kissing date. Why didn’t you kiss me?’ I was scared. I fancied her you see.”
Ten years later they’ve gotten considerably further than the third date. The latest edition to the Doyle household is Elsa (named after the lion in Born Free) who arrived last November. Muireann is six, and four-year-old Milo is named after Milo O’Shea. Quinn, the eldest, is named after a boy who appeared on Tomorrow’s World when Doyle was presenting it. “We were doing a piece on a lighthouse on Beachy Head and Quinn was the name of a local boy I met”, he says. “I used to go there a lot afterwards with Doon when she was my girlfriend and I used to say to her it we ever have a boy we’ll call him Quinn.”
Recently, Doon looked after the whole brood while he was away for two months for the Rugby World Cup, working with a panel of pundits including Sean Fitzpatrick, François Pienaar and Lawrence Dallaglio. He takes out his iPhone to show me some pictures. “It was great fun, just cool and we became very friendly and we had a great time. Talk about being yourself; I was so comfortable working with them and we laughed so much. Being yourself when you’re broadcasting is the way to go.”
He did have to turn down an offer to go helicopter fishing (apparently you hover above the water and cast your fishing rod out) because he was presenting the Bronze match that day but Doyle did take a 700-mile road trip with Michael Lynagh, the man who helped put Ireland out of the World Cup in 1991 in Lansdowne Road. “I was on the phone to my dad from New Zealand and I said, ‘Dad, I’m with Michael Lynhan and he said, ‘well tell him he’s a b****x!’” Doyle says. “It was a lovely World Cup because I got to know all these people. It was exhausting but it was great fun.”
ITV have already offered him the chance to do it again in four years time but for now he’s staying closer to home on The Social. “Ultimately, I want to be here. My family is here and my friends are here and the new show is here”, he says. “Traditionally a chat show is people watching this grand sparkly thing but we’re saying ‘hey, it’s not Friday night, it’s Tuesday night.’ We’re in the same place as the viewer and we want to make the guests feel as though they’re not performing. We hope to sneak into their minds a little bit.”
And not an autocue in sight.
The Social is on Tuesdays at 10.25pm on RTÉ Two
