With Saturday Night with Miriam back on RTÉ One tonight at 9:45pm, the presenter tells Harry Guerin that when the show started in 2005 she was worried about doing a chat show – 11 years on, she knows it was the right decision.
Harry Guerin: I couldn't believe that the show has been going since 2005 – I thought you'd been doing it for about four years.
Miriam O'Callaghan: [Laughs] I can't get over it myself. It's the 11th season and hey, happy days.
Did you think it would be running quite so long when the idea first came up?
Honestly, probably not. It came up because I used to sit in the Green Room where we have a drink after Prime Time and some of my bosses used to watch me in full motion chatting to people and shooting the breeze after the show and asking them lots of personal questions. And they said, 'Hey, you can't ask those questions on Prime Time – you should do a chat show. So that's how it came about and I think it was done really as a summer filler, to be frank, to see if I could do it. And then, I think, they decided I could and now we're doing it 11 seasons so there you go.
Were you hesitant to do the show?
I had a great hesitation 11 years ago about doing it because I had built my reputation on being a serious journalist, both in the BBC on Newsnight and in RTÉ on Prime Time. I was worried – at that stage I wasn't even doing radio – that if I did a show that was slightly softer that it would damage my reputation as a current affairs journalist. But Iwas wrong to worry because, the thing is, we all underestimate the intelligence of our viewers and our listeners. They knew that I had many different sides to me, and just because I sit down and have fun interviews sometimes doesn't mean I'm not also at different times a serious journalist.
Was there one thing that swayed your mind towards doing the show?
I suppose the people who asked me to do it were producers I'd worked with, even our current Director-General Noel Curran. He had been my producer and he was the person who would have been involved in asking me to do it. I trusted his judgement and I kind of knew that he felt I could do it and not damage myself and I should go for it. I think in life take chances: take risks in your career because if you say 'no' all the time, well, you don't know how things might have turned out. So I'm glad I said 'yes' and it turned out great for me.
What was the toughest part of the learning curve for you?
Not being all the time feeling like I have to 'grill' people [laughs]. You don't always have to interrogate your interviewee. I think initially I was trying to be too serious and then I was probably trying to be too soft. So I think what's happened over the years is I've grown into myself, which sounds an unusual thing to say. I'm just me and I realise that talking to viewers and listeners they know me by now so I don't have to pretend I'm somebody other than I am. And it's worked for me.
Looking back over the seasons, which is the moment you remember most?
I suppose that there's one I feel quite emotional about. The late, great Bill O'Herlihy died recently and there was a classic show that's still online of himself and Eamon Dunphy, John Giles and Liam Brady. Eamon got up and sang a song, Stardust, and then John sang The Very Thought of You on the couch to me and Eamon. And Bill just sat there loving it. For me, that remains a very special moment. It was [at the time], but because Bill is no longer with us it's taken on an extra meaning for me right now. It's a beautiful show and a beautiful moment.
I remember watching it at the time and remarking that there was just a great warmth in the room. So what was the scariest moment down the years?
The most terrifying moment for me – and people have since said to me they thought it was planned – was Brendan O'Connor was a guest on my show years ago, long before he was a great chat show host. It was around the time they were doing You're a Star. I was asking them all about music and suddenly, out of the blue – and he would verify this – he said, 'Miriam, why don't you sing?'. I remember feeling horrified. 'This is live,' I said.
You're not confident in your vocal talents?
I only sing when I've really, really, really had a good few glasses of wine at parties at two in the morning. And he said, 'No, you should sing'. I was asking everyone else about singing and I just felt I should step up to the mark and rise to it. I sang Skibbereen live on air. And I will never forget it! But I did it; it went ok, believe it or not. But I'm never going to do it again!
So what can you tell us about the season coming up?
I'll just talk to you about the first show because I think it's important. I think the dominant story this week, and I can't get it out of my mind, are those beautiful students who died and have been injured in Berkeley. The nice thing about live chat shows, which is what it is, we all gathered this afternoon and we changed the running order of our show and we're opening with that story.
We will have a beautiful interview with Charlie McGettigan, the singer-songwriter who won the Eurovision with Rock and Roll Kids. His beautiful young son died as a J1 visa student 17 years ago in quite a similar horrible accident and he is coming on to talk about that and the American Ambassador is coming on to talk about how wonderful J1 students are and how sorry America is about our loss in Ireland. And then Charlie is going to sing one of his songs, Feet of a Dancer, as tribute to those who have been injured and who have lost their lives and their families. That's a really important moment for us.
Then we're going to change gear. We're giving away €10,000 and then Marty Whelan and Sinéad Kennedy are coming on because they're back on Winning Streak. And then Stephanie Roche is on hot from her signing with a new football club [Sunderland Ladies AFC]. And we have Tony Christie coming on to do a live performance of Is This the Way to Amarillo?. So it's a great line-up and I'm really, really pleased.
You were hit with the Ice Bucket Challenge on the show last year. Are you wary of surprises this year?
I sincerely hope it's not an ice bucket, but if it's something for a good cause I hope I rise to the challenge again.
What do you think the biggest misconception is for viewers about how chat shows are put together?
I don't think they see the amount of work that goes into them because we're so spoiled by shows like Graham Norton. He just gets all these extraordinary A-listers who want to be on his show. Apart from the fact that he's brilliant, they want to be on his show to promote their movie because of the size of the British audience. In Ireland it's much harder, because those A-listers don't travel across the Irish Sea because it [the market] is too small. A lot of work goes into getting a chat show that people will watch, and the lovely thing is they still remain in the top 10, all of our chat shows do really well. I think the misconception would be that maybe a lot of work doesn't go into it, but those production teams – my producers, my team, the Late Late Show, Brendan's show, Ray's [D'Arcy] coming up show, Pat Kenny – a lot of work goes into them.
Would you ever think of doing specials on just the one person?
We pondered that for this year because I began my entire career as a researcher on This Is Your Life. It might be something in the future that we look at, but for this year we're sticking with our current format.
What are your own favourite TV shows?
Game of Thrones [laughs]. I've just watched that finale. I find that very interesting. And obviously, on RTÉ I watch all news and current affairs. I watched the [Brian] Lenihan documentary [Legacies] the other night because I thought that was a superb programme about a very wonderful man who I had the privilege to interview on a number of occasions. That got a massive audience, which shows you that with Irish people, they like programmes about real Irish people who have done some good in their lives.
When you finish the show on a Saturday night, does it take a while to come down from the adrenaline buzz?
Yes, but not just on Saturday evening – even on Prime Time. When you come off a live show it takes time to go to sleep. So I always either go up to the Green Room and have a glass of wine or come home and have a glass of wine, and frankly, there's no way I could fall asleep for a couple of hours.
Any singing?
[Laughs] No, not after Prime Time. But you never know, maybe after the chat show I'll go home and sing!
