Patrick Kielty introduces The Late Late Show for the first time this Friday, 15 September. John Byrne meets the latest host of the world’s longest-running live chat show to see where his head’s at.
Well, all I can say is: thank Gaybo the waiting is finally over. Since Ryan Tubridy stepped down last May from hosting The Late Late Show to this Friday’s return under the stewardship of Patrick Kielty, it has been pretty much the most GUBU few months in Irish showbiz history.
The late Charlie Haughey may have coined the phrase ‘grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre, unprecedented’ and created an acronym that’s wheeled out whenever something bonkers happens in Irish life, but it gained new traction over the summer months.
You all know the basics, so I’ll not bore you about barter accounts, flip-flops or how much money Ryan Tubridy was or wasn’t paid for what or whatnot. We are now entering the Patrick Kielty era. A new groom sweeps clean.
Whatever went on at RTÉ in the past, it has nothing to do with the latest Late Late presenter. Indeed, he could be described as the future of the national broadcaster, though that’s a concept that might be considered somewhat abstract these days. And a rather unfair tag for the man himself.
I’m in a meeting room in an RTÉ building that’s known internally as ‘Stage 7’. I have no idea why it’s called that, and I’ve been working here since the mid-1990s. It doesn’t matter anyway, because it’s the reason I’m here that matters. In walks that reason and he’s called Patrick Kielty, and straight away I can see that this guy means business. He couldn’t look more relaxed.
I’ve had the good fortune to interview every one of the previous Late Late Show hosts. They each had their own style. They each approached a new Late Late Show season in a different way. But they did have one thing in common: Gay Byrne, Pat Kenny and Ryan Tubridy were all Dubs.
Okay, Gaybo had the working-class background, Pat Kenny was a Northsider whose da worked in Dublin Zoo, while the aforementioned Tubs was a Southside sophisticate with Free State Founding Father credentials in his family tree. Very different, but all very Dub.
Getting the mischievous question out of the way, I wonder out loud if "not being a city boy" would be to Patrick Kielty’s advantage as the new face of The Late Late Show?
He gives me a big grin and says: "I think that’s a polite way of saying that I’m a culchie, isn’t it? Look, I don’t know. I think, when you’re not born and bred in Dublin, well that’s what you are."
Smart answer. Patrick Kielty may be the first non-Dubliner host of The Late Late Show, but he’s certainly no stranger to it, either as a viewer or a guest. He did plenty of the former during his formative years, and a bit of the latter as his own showbiz career began to gain traction during the 1990s.
"It’s funny how what goes around, comes around," he says. "Growing up in Dundrum, watching that show. Sitting on the sofa with your ma and da. We had the two aerials. In Co Down, you needed two aerials to watch the telly. One went to Belfast and one went to Dublin. There was a wee switch underneath the TV.
"And then Gay [Byrne] gave me one of my first television appearances."
It's a claim to fame that isn't unique, but Kielty's honesty is admirable.
"I died on my arse on The Late Late Show," he admits. "That was the comic thing. Then he had me back. What’s funny about it is that it feels like going back to the start, in a very good way."
So Patrick Kielty has, in a strange way, completed a showbiz full circle, from the boy watching The Late Late Show with his folks, to the young comedian performing on the show, to the 52-year-old new host of Irish TV’s flagship series. This move is a lifetime in the making.
Entertaining with impersonations from an early age, Kielty took to standup while studying at Queen’s, and as his career developed it led to TV slots and a variety of presenting roles, including his own shows such as PK Tonight and Patrick Kielty Almost Live.
In 2018, he presented a documentary, My Dad, the Peace Deal and Me for BBC Two, where he discussed the killing of his father by terrorists and the effect it had on him.
More recently, he added acting to his repertoire, and features in the upcoming dramedy Ballywalter, starring alongside Seana Kerslake. So, why The Late Late Show and why now?
"I think I’m much more ready," he says, before pausing. "I think I’m much more ready to host this show than I would’ve been at any other time in my life. I think, in order to host this show you’ve got to be comfortable in your skin. I have lived a wee bit.
"You have got to be comfortable having a conversation with anybody about anything. And I think, if you look at this show, there’s sort of an egalitarian vein that has always ran through the marble of this show, which is ‘You’re a standup, there’s a politician, and there’s a Hollywood star. But this is Ireland and we treat everybody the same here.’
"I think that’s something that really attracted me to it," he insists. "The idea that I could look at some of the stuff that I’d been doing - the standup, then I’d hosted [television shows], then I’d gone back to the standup. And then the documentaries that I made, in my head, made me more comfortable about having serious chats.
"And having done the movie [Ballywalter], which is coming out in a couple of weeks, and knowing what acting is now and that process, I kind of feel that now is a good time to be able - I wouldn’t have been ready for it, five, ten years ago."
While it's pretty much universally agreed that Patrick Kielty looks a great fit for The Late Late Show, there have been fears that the very unique structure of the show might change. Could the new face mean a major overhaul and approach, making the show more like a million other chat shows around the globe and just feature celebrities and be mainly for laughs?
It’s clear from the way Kielty speaks about the show that the format will not be fiddled with while he’s involved. He understands its essential Irishness and how it stands out in a showbiz world that craves conformity and formulaic approaches to programme-making.
"For me, it’s the most Irish thing in the world," he says, horrified at the idea of The Late Late Show being homogenized.
"The local pub in the townland where I’m from, up the road, you go into that pub on a Friday night, you could be sitting with somebody having a great laugh with a yarn... and then somebody comes in and they’ve maybe buried someone during the week.
"Everybody says they’re sorry, offers their condolences and you buy them a drink. You stop laughing, you have a chat then, and maybe they’ll tell you something funny and you might laugh again. And then somebody is going to be singing in the corner. Then somebody else comes in and maybe you talk politics.
"I think that The Late Late Show reflects how we are as a people and the way that we interact with each other in Irish society. So it’s one of the reasons why I think the show has never been replicated anywhere else.
"If you look at it, we’re in an era of (adopts ersatz showbizzy American accent) ‘Oh my God! What’s that format? Can we package that here?’ Every person in every other territory has looked at The Late Late Show and realised you can’t package it. It’s like trying to grab the air. It is quintessentially Irish."
But Patrick Kielty's also keen to point out that he isn’t just wandering on to the old Late Late Show set and carrying on as though nothing has happened. He wants to leave his own indelible mark on a show that has been a central part of Irish life for more than sixty years.
"Ultimately, when hosts change, styles change, and sometimes how the furniture looks changes," he says. "But it's about the substance of sitting down with someone - who you have to be interested in to start with - and trying to find out who they are.
"Trying to let the viewer work out, ‘Do I like that person more or do I like that person less?’ And not necessarily try to change their mind - the person in the other chair, they’ll do that.
"That’s the stuff that’s the heart of this show. And long may that continue - and beyond me."
To whom it concerns, this is the new phase of The Late Late Show. And here is your host, Patrick Kielty. We’re in good hands folks.
The Late Late Show airs on Friday 15 September, 9.35pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player
