RTÉ's new season: No worries but lots of drama with fresh current affairs and comedy shows

Current affairs panel series Monday Night Live, a larger than usual slate of television drama and a new showcase for viral comedy talent will enliven RTÉ's upcoming season of programmes, with television viewing over the coming months also set to be boosted by the atypical winter scheduling of the FIFA World Cup.

The public service broadcaster held its first in-person season launch event since 2019 in Dublin’s RDS on Thursday as it resumed its bid to stave off the market-wide decline in linear television viewing and bed down a positive legacy from the pandemic, when the pattern briefly reversed.

Singer Tolü Makay, who shot to fame mid-pandemic after her on-air rendition of the Saw Doctors’ N17 with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, delivered the standout moment of the launch, receiving a standing ovation after performing Mercy, Mercy Me from RTÉ's A Note for Nature, an arts programme that will explore Ireland’s most fragile landscapes through music and spoken word.

Drama stars were also on hand to discuss their roles in the more than 40 hours of original Irish drama that RTÉ plans to air in the months ahead — an increase of 55 per cent on last year — with the line-up headed by the return of gangster family saga Kin. Production of its second run is now underway in Dublin after a successful debut.

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“It’s a bit like those games in an arcade where you hit down the heads and another one pops up. That’s where the Kinsellas find themselves this season,” said Charlie Cox, who plays first-season survivor Michael Kinsella.

Kin is no more about happy families than North Sea Connection, set within an isolated Connemara fishing community, is about the size of the catch. “I think it’s actually quite a selfless act,” said actor Kerr Logan of his character’s drugs cartel activities in the Nordic-Irish thriller. “If he wasn’t dealing drugs, you would just be watching people fishing.”

Elsewhere, Charlene McKenna leads Clean Sweep, in which she plays a woman who kills her former partner-in-crime, unbeknownst to her detective husband, while Smother returns for a third and final season, with star Dervla Kirwan promising a “tremendous ending” for the Co Clare-set drama.

Oscar nominee Ciarán Hinds, a veteran of Kin, stars in comedy drama The Dry, about a recovering alcoholic (Roisin Gallagher) who moves home to Dublin. “It’s sort of about how much easier it is to stay sober when you’re not living with your family,” said writer Nancy Harris.

New dark comedy drama SisterS, meanwhile, sees two half-sisters take a road trip across Ireland, while Storyland — a single-drama scheme for rising talent supported by RTÉ and Screen Ireland — will air on television for the first time.

To avoid scheduling chaos, RTÉ is not expected to run a recurring Sunday night drama in late November and the first half of December, as it often would, because the World Cup is being staged in Qatar for a month, ending with the final on December 18th.

Hosted by a team of presenters, Monday Night Live will fill the former Claire Byrne Live slot on RTÉ One for eight weeks this autumn, with the programme due to deal with issues such as the cost-of-living crisis, the housing shortage, childcare and climate change. More details will be announced next month, with a permanent replacement show for Claire Byrne Live set to begin in January.

“Strap yourself in,” said RTÉ current affairs presenter Katie Hannon of the expected “winter of discontent” ahead. Ms Hannon will be addressing even more tumultuous times, however, delving into the national archives for a documentary with the working title Communism, Sex and All That Jazz. “To me, that sounds like a summer running order for Liveline,” joked event co-host Cormac Ó hEadhra.

Six years after the end of Republic of Telly, RTÉ is re-committing to the promotion of new comedy talent, with Justine Stafford, Emma Doran, Michael Fry, Seán Burke and Killian Sundermann — all well known to social media users — the main contributors to RTÉ2 sketch show No Worries if Not!

“To be honest, it was such a joy to even be together in a room physically, coming up with concepts,” said Ms Stafford. “You are kind of there going, ‘how is this a real job?’”

“It’s better than having a real job, I suppose,” underwater filmmaker Ken O’Sullivan also concluded when asked why he does what he does by event co-host Zainab Boladale. His new natural history piece North Atlantic has been four years in gestation, including an initial 18 months spent fundraising: “Ultimately, we have to compete with the BBCs and the streamers.”

Other factual programming includes Brian and Arthur’s Very Modern Family, in which Arthur Gourounlian and Brian Dowling document their surrogacy journey, and Saipan: Rebel Without a Ball, which asks how far the Irish team could have gone had Roy Keane stayed. Lady Gregory: Ireland’s First Social Influencer, led by Miriam Margolyes and Lynn Ruane, and Francis Bacon: The Outsider, presented by U2‘s Adam Clayton, are among the arts highlights.

In Tommy Tiernan’s Epic West, the comedian takes a personal look at the culture and landscape of the west of Ireland, while chat show The Tommy Tiernan Show is back as part of RTÉ's familiar roster of entertainment shows, led by Dancing with the Stars — which will be minus co-presenter Nicky Byrne — and The Late Late Show. “It’s like being hit by a bus made of marshmallows and gingerbread men are dancing around your head,” said presenter Ryan Tubridy of The Late Late Toy Show, scheduled for November 25th.

Other returning staples include First Dates Ireland, Ireland’s Fittest Family and ratings heavy-hitter Room to Improve.

Dee Forbes, director-general of the State-owned broadcaster, highlighted the importance of live broadcasting to its schedules, as she told attendees she has “never been more convinced” of the role of public service broadcasting in “creating a shared space, for important discussion and debate, for celebration, for telling national stories and for marking national moments”.

“It is a role that we cherish and do not take for granted.”