Patrick Kielty reflects on 50 years of The Toy Show
Pic: Andres Poveda
The theme of The Toy Show may be The Grinch, but Patrick Kielty couldn’t be further from that.
Well maybe when it comes to one thing!
“I’m not singing and dancing,” he tells us. “We’ve got some amazing singers and dancers. There’s a tiny bit of dancing…Not as much as you would think.”
Well, we’re excited to see what he has up his sleeve, but he promises us that we won’t be disappointed when we sit in to watch tonight.
Pic: Andres Poveda
And plenty of costume changes!
“The production seem to think I am Lady Gaga. There’s the occasional costume change,” he laughs.
“Last year, I had to change into a gorilla suit. People thought it was prerecorded, but it was live. And we couldn’t get the mic on it. There’s a clip where I am meant to be there, and I’m not, I’m running in, and a set of drums is slid in to meet me. There’s normally a bit of blind panic combined with a flesh coloured Spanx. That’s how I roll. ”
Despite being three years in the roll, Patrick confesses that nerves “never really change”.
Pic: Andres Poveda
“It’s a very, very weird thing. Whenever you do the normal show, you come through the other side of the studio. But for The Toy Show, you have to come in past the big picture of Gay and he is looking down saying, ‘Don’t mess this up.’ The nerves are always there.
“I always love just getting up and running. As soon as we’re on air, you can’t control it. When you realise you can’t control it, I’m now at the Zen Buddha stage of Toy Show. Let’s hang on for the ride!”
However, he does have a beautiful way to decompress after the show, saying it’s “a moment for me”.
“Everybody leaves, there’s this lovely moment where I sneak back in, and I just sit at the back and look at the set and think, ‘Wow that happened.’ I just take a wee second to go, ‘You were a part of that’.”
Pic: Andres Poveda
Of course, this year is even more special as it is the 50th anniversary of The Toy Show. The show started in 1975 when Gay Byrne had a small segment about toys on the show. It has now become a megalith of Irish telly and a tradition for families across the globe.
“It has improved substantially up until three years ago when they changed the host and we’re hanging on from there,” he jokes.
“The idea that people are actually having a shared experience becomes less and less around the world. I think we’re really lucky here that this is one of the few shows in the world that brings families and generations together,” he says then.
Pic: Andres Poveda
“I think it’s because of Gay; if you’re a grandparent, you remember him coming out in 1975 and doing the segment, it wasn’t a full show at the time. So you realise the genesis of it. That’s part of your Christmas, the next generation remembers Pat and Ryan.
“There’s a new generation of kids now as well. This anniversary is so important because culturally in this country, how we come together before Christmas is unique. The Toy Show is all about looking forward, but in our heads ,there’s always a nod to how we began.”
The Late Late Toy Show will air on Friday, 5 December, at 9:35 pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player
