Patrick Kielty’s Late Late prep: Butterflies, politics and a message from Tubs

The owl has hogged all the attention but as Patrick Kielty counts down to his first Late Late Show at 9.35pm on RTÉ One tonight, other winged creatures are destined for a cameo.

“Will there be a few butterflies? There will be. But, ultimately, I’m going to try to take it all in and suck every last brilliant moment out of it.”

His predecessor at the Late Late helm has been in touch.

“I got a little message from Ryan wishing me good luck, which I thought was very nice,” he told a huddle of reporters, who pressed for more. Was it a text, a phone call? Any pointers from Tubridy?

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“Come on now, I’ve thrown you a good bone there,” said the incoming host.

[ Patrick Kielty would welcome Ryan Tubridy as Late Late Show guest ]

He proved equally circumspect when it came to revealing what his iteration of the 61-year-old chatshow will be like. “Lots of nice treats” are lined up, he teased, but no guests will be announced before his debut.

Asked to describe tonight’s big bang in one word, he answered “coming”, prompting brief confusion among journalists who thought he had gone with “common”.

A broadcaster’s common touch should, nevertheless, come in handy on a Late Late expected to feature prominent interaction with the studio audience. A “brilliant thing” Gay Byrne did was talk to the audience as much as down the camera, he said.

“It was like coming into the parlour and that, for me, is what this show is.”

For RTÉ, much is riding on Kielty’s tenure. Traditional television viewing has waned since 2009, when Tubridy’s first show secured an average audience of 927,000 – the highest Late Late ratings in a decade. It will be a tough ask for Kielty to replicate those numbers, though the curiosity factor bodes well for a honeymoon.

If the audience at home was to react to the show through the medium of emoji, which emoji would he like them to use?

“There’s going to be a couple of emojis that I’m going to have, if I can say that, out the back before I head on ... I hope maybe there’s going to be a few laugh-out-louds and there might be one of those with the monkey,” he said, raising both palms to his eyes.

“Hopefully at the end of it, people will be smiling.”

His stand-up comedian origins mean he doesn’t like the idea of “trying to make the thing be too polished” in tone. As for the pace of the trimmed 90-minute show, there will be “ebbs and flows” and “something in there for everyone”.

To make live television seem “loose”, as he intends, requires structure and advance planning: the last of the dry runs took place this week, with Kielty and the behind-the-scenes team – which includes executive producer Jane Murphy and director Stephen Stewart, his long-term collaborator – learning “a lot” from how it went.

[ Patrick Kielty: ‘I haven’t had a conversation with Ryan Tubridy or Pat Kenny’ ]

[ Late Late Show trims its broadcast slot to 90 minutes ]

“What was nice was just getting out on to the set and seeing how stuff was going to feel. We had a bit of an audience then and it was loose and everybody seemed to come away feeling that it was fun.”

The Co Down-born comedian, who has signed on for three 30-show seasons, has a serious side that he hopes to bring out through his new vehicle and politicians will “definitely” appear as guests during the run.

“One of the attractions for me coming to the show was we’re living in a changing politic. Things are changing on this island.”

His fingers are crossed that he can have “a ringside seat to some of those important discussions”.

Kielty will commute each week from London, where he lives with his wife – presenter Cat Deeley – and their two young sons. They won’t be flying over to watch him in-person just yet.

“They’re still getting their head around the fact I’ve got a pet owl and my head turns 360,” said Kielty of his kids, referencing a promo for the show. A “request may come in for a trip” sometime before Christmas.

“Whenever I got this gig, the Toy Show was the one where it’s [like] ‘Oh my god, that’s the one’. The first show [tonight] is the one that we kind of want to get out of the way.”