The Late Late Toy Show: How a TV special became Ireland’s greatest Christmas tradition

A mixture of toys, music and heartwarming surprises, the Toy Show is more than a TV programme – it’s a celebration of Irishness and Christmas, as Ben Kelly explains

Ryan Tubridy hosting The Late Late Toy Show, with a Little Mermaid theme in 2017 (RTE)

In Ireland, it’s not the John Lewis advert or the Coca Cola bus that heralds the arrival of Christmas: it’s The Late Late Toy Show.

Since its debut in 1975, the Toy Show has won a special place in Irish hearts, and a legion of viewers. Last year, the 1.35 million who tuned in amounted to a 72 per cent audience share.

The programme is a special edition of The Late Late Show, which airs every Friday night. A mix of politics, celebrity interviews, musical guests and audience participation, it’s where Eurovision entries are chosen, controversial referendums debated. Since 1962, it has reigned as the flagship programme for the national broadcaster RTE, and is a staple of Irish life.

Once a year, a few weeks before Christmas, it delivers a festive highlight: The Late Late Toy Show. Essentially, it’s a showcase of the gifts that are dominating the Santa lists that year – and a group of children are invited on to test them out.

Music, dancing, special guests and other surprises have been added into the mix. Last year, the Burke children from Cork opened a huge present to discover their father inside – a soldier who had been on a peacekeeping mission in Mali, now home for Christmas. The clip quickly went viral.

This festive cavalcade is sleekly managed by RTE host Ryan Tubridy. “In Ireland, it’s almost like you have two Christmases,” he tells The Independent, during a break from this year’s preparations. “There’s 25 December, and then there’s the Toy Show night.”

Having grown up watching at home, Tubridy now gets to unleash his inner child as he oversees proceedings. “It’s probably akin to waiting at the bottom of the stairs on Christmas morning to go in and collect your presents from under the tree from Santa,” he says, “and then actually becoming part of the operation to deliver that.”

He believes the secret to managing the kids and getting the best out of them during the two-hour live broadcast is to speak to them on their level.

“You just need to sit down and talk to them like you’re their mate, and they just start chatting,” he says. “Irish children have a certain take on the world, whether they’re talking about farming or music – it’s comical, it’s fun and it’s entertaining.”

Much like Santa’s own schedule, planning for the Toy Show is a year-long affair. Katherine Drohan is a senior producer who has worked on the show for several years, and she says that the day after the show airs, they begin preparations for the next year.

“We’re always thinking about the Toy Show,” she says. “I go to the toy fair in London every January and Ryan always keeps an eye out for things that catch his eye. But the production properly begins three months in advance, when we do a call out for auditions.”

It is not hyperbole to say that appearing on the Toy Show is a childhood dream for anyone who grows up in Ireland. So what is the secret formula the producers are looking for?

“Prior to Ryan’s time it would have been the energetic, smiley, happy faces,” she explains. “Now what we’re looking for is authenticity – kids who aren’t self-conscious, they can’t hide their true personality, their quirks. Ryan is really good at spotting the essence of a child, and bringing that out. He’s a big kid himself, so he’s a kindred spirit!”

To make perfect TV moments, the show thinks beyond surprising kids with a new toy or a celebrity. Drohan recalls the 2015 appearance of Johnny O’Loughlin, a Clare resident who was obsessed with the weather, and in particular, weather girl Evelyn Cusack.

“He used to watch the weather every evening with his parents and they’d guess which presenter it was going to be – he had even made a little weather game himself which he used to play. So that year we decided to bring on Evelyn Cusack as his big surprise.”

After his initial shock, O’Loughlin then got to play his homemade board game with his heroine. This kind of personalised surprise has become synonymous with the magic of the Toy Show.

“We let the kids drive the stories,” says Drohan, “and you can’t help but love those big moments that creates.”

In many cases, an appearance on the Toy Show is one that never leaves you. Sean McDonnell was 10-year-old when he appeared on the show in 1992. Now, aged 36, he says people still remember it.

“I was selected from about 10,000 people to appear,” he remembers. On the night, he performed a song he’d written himself – “You Gotta Be Faster” – complete with a Michael Jackson-esque routine.

“The reaction from my whole school the Monday morning after was incredible,” he says. “It propelled me into mini-stardom as a child in my neighbourhood. It was amazing to be part of such a classic show, and to be famous for a little while. People still ask me about it to this day!”

Whether you’ve been lucky enough to appear on the show, sit in the audience, or if you simply enjoy the family tradition of sitting down to watch together every year, The Late Late Toy Show is something that all Irish people enjoy in common.

“It’s not a TV show, It’s an event,” says Drohan. “It’s a celebration of Irishness and Christmas. Everyone in the class will talk about it, and they’ll stay up late, and the parents are talking about it, and the twentysomethings are watching it over drinks – it works on so many levels.”

Ryan Tubridy unleashes his inner kid once a year in a TV special which sees Irish children testing the best toys on offer

Tubridy thinks that the show also serves a deeper purpose. “It decynicises a nation for two hours. The more cynical the world gets, the most important the Toy Show becomes because it’s unfettered by expectations and notions and politics – even Brexit.”

He also agrees that the Toy Show – and The Late Late Show itself – is something of a lifeline for the Irish diaspora abroad, a kind of bat signal from the motherland. Many will tune in to watch it on the RTE Player from the UK, the US, or Australia.

“The Late Late is like really good Irish butter, or Irish tea or Irish bacon, it’s home. And people sometimes need to access the heart of where they’re from. A friend of mine described it as a big Irish town hall meeting every week, and that’s lovely. So just imagine that but for Christmas – with children and toys and happiness.” And jumpers, perhaps. Indeed, a longstanding tradition is that the host is expected to wear a showstopping Christmas sweater, and viewers often send their own creations in, hoping it’ll be the chosen one.

“They’re getting worse,” he laughs. Is he set for this year? “I have the most disgusting jumper known to mankind!”

The Late Late Toy Show airs on RTE One in Ireland on Friday 27 November. Viewers around the world can watch live, or later, on the RTE Player.