From Young Offenders to being a mentor of the young - Demi Isaac Ovine is living proof that TV can sometimes open up the oddest of doors.
Best known for playing Linda Walsh in the RTÉ and BBC Cork-based comedy, she's coming back in a completely different role on the box in What's Next?
It's a new, future focused series that invites young people from across Ireland compete against each other to come up with the next big idea that might just save the planet.
The overall winner gets to pitch their idea to a millionaire investor. Nice!
Hosted by award winning Irish inventor, entrepreneur and environmentalist Fionn Ferreira and sidekicks/mentors, Demi Isaac Oviawe, YouTuber Adam Beales and comedian MC Fitzpatrick, What's Next? airs from November 14 on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player.
"It’s completely different," Demi says when we catch up with her at the launch of RTÉ's new slate of homegrown content for children, which was held on Wednesday at The Ark in Dublin's Temple Bar.
"And I really got into it. It was great to work with very young people. I wish I had that show when I was younger because it really got the ball rolling in terms of thinking about recycling.
"When I'm on about clothes and food and fashion, it’s like: you’ve got a pair of shoes in the morning. You don’t want to wear them and they don’t fit you. What way can I recycle them?
"Are there different ways to recycle clothes? And food waste, especially. There’s so much food wasted in this country - how can we prevent that? What can we do to prevent it?
"And there are so many ideas! The kids are brilliant. They really are."
Comedian Tony Cantwell was also t the launch, as he's one of the voice stars of upcoming animated series Doodle Girl, which arrives on November 4 on RTÉjr and RTÉ Player.
As well as that, he’s also the star and co-writer on Good Boy - which is not for kids! - but is available from Wednesday October 16 on the RTÉ Player.
He’s a busy lad, Tony.
"It’s just mad the way things work out," he says. "We started recording Doodle Girl mid last year and Good Boy hadn’t even happened yet. It was in email exchange form and hadn’t even started happening.
"And because of the patient nature of hand-drawn animation - and it's a really incredible show - we wrapped Doodle Girl even before we started shooting Good Boy."
Doodle Girl! and her best friend Pencil spend each day exploring the different pages of the weird and wonderful sketchbook she lives in.
On each adventure, Doodle Girl meets all sorts of doodly characters, all voiced by Tony Cantwell. And he's new to voiceover work, so this was a real eye-opener for him. And he loved it.
"I always wanted to do this kind of thing," he insists. "My ultimate dream would have been that I could animate different characters and I got to make maybe 50 different characters just in Doodle Girl."
The voices he created for the show range from "a Northern Irish otter to an Xs and Os cross that sounds like Keanu Reeves to a dinosaur that sounds like a New York taxi driver".
It's no wonder Tony describes it as "pure kid in the candy store stuff’ for him.
And Doodle Girl herself is voiced by the brilliant Aisling Walsh. "Doodle Girl is a creator of sketches, but she’s a sketch herself," Tony explains.
What's Next? and Doodle Girl are just two of the many shows coming young viewers' way on RTÉ.
Spooky supernatural comedy drama The Unreal has already started on Sundays on RTÉ One, with the full series on RTÉ Player.
Other new shows include Maddie + Triggs, narrated by Siobhán McSweeney, and Adam Loves Adventure, a new animation series starring Late Late Toy Show hero Adam King as a problem-solving space-explorer.
RTÉjr will bring lots of Christmas cheer to young audiences with a festive special of Irish language favourite, Fia's Fairies complete with carols as Gaeilge.
Cork's finest, The Kabin Crew will cap off a wonderful year, including their recent longlist for the 2025 Grammy Awards, with their very own Christmas Special.
This Is Art! Ireland's all-island digital art competition is back and accepting entries all details available at rte.ie/thisisart and you can also check out This Is Art Club! on RTÉ 2 & the RTÉ Player to get inspired by the next generation of Irish artists.
The Scavengers is a new environmental animation series set in Ireland in the year 3000.
For younger audiences, Stories from Backwoods follows a city raccoon as she finds her place in a wild forest community, while Where the Wild Geese Go follows the migration of the light-bellied Brent goose from Ireland to Canada will premiere on RTÉ2 with Irish language version, Áit a dTéann na Géanna Fiáine also airing.
Pre-schoolers can enjoy Hey Fuzzy Yellow, a spirited new spin on childhood edutainment through exploration and play, while a new series of Sir Mouse returns in December.
In the world of children’s podcasts, RTÉjr Radio has over 220 hours of podcasts available.
New offerings include Time Tablet, which features curriculum-linked learnings for children from third to sixth classes.
Other award-winning podcasts available to stream now include Ecolution, Cereal, and Nero’s Class. Plus, Stop the Bus, Storytime Takeover, We Love Books, Our Sustainable Village and Ireland’s Unreal continue to offer laughs for children aged 3 and above.
Search www.rte.ie/kids and www.rte.ie/learn to find more information on content and educational resources.
A safe space for young people to watch native content, RTÉjr offers programmes which are ad-free and available in Safe Mode on RTÉ Player.
