Paddy got off to a bright start but here’s some free advice

IT WAS like being handed the biggest and best ice-cream cone in the world, only to watch it melt before you could finish it. Patrick Kielty’s debut as host of The Late Late Show got off to a cracking start but the law of diminishing returns kicked in pretty quickly.

First, though, the good. We are accustomed to – on equivalent American programmes – funny opening monologues but it’s a new concept here and it worked a treat, as Kielty went straight for the jugular with jokes about RTÉ’s recent travails.

‘We’re going to try a new format where the host gets to ask the questions instead of having to answer them at the Oireachtas,’ he wickedly announced.

‘Based on the latest figures for TV licence payments, we’re expecting an audience of up to 27 people tuning in tonight. Just to put that into perspective, that’s almost double the amount of people who saw Toy Show The Musical.’

And, best of all, he introduced the house band as Grant Thornton and the Flip Flops.

It felt oddly cathartic to watch Kielty not just acknowledging the elephant in the room but riding on its back in a wicker basket.

It was touching, too, to see how much the gig means to him, his voice cracking with emotion as he called it ‘the greatest honour of my life’.

We had hoped that the new host would rustle through the contacts on his mobile and deliver an A-list guest for openers. Instead, we got Tommy Tiernan, Hector Ó hEochagáin and Laurita Blewitt. There’s nothing wrong with any of them (and, indeed, maybe a little payback involved, because it surely was Kielty’s thoughtful interview on Tiernan’s own chat show that got him into the Studio 4 hot seat), but it was a reminder that there often seems to be someone in the Montrose corridor with a shepherd’s crook, waiting to grab the neck of the first person who leaves the canteen.

Next up was former president Mary McAleese, again not exactly a stranger in that studio, but an understandable booking. It signposted, quite rightly, that Kielty’s tenure will be less metropolitan and more aware of the island as a whole.

Then came disaster. The Late Late demographic, let’s be honest, is an older one, myself included, and I find The 2 Johnnies about as funny as having to get up twice in the night to go to the loo. Nor was I wild about the musical act, Chasing Abbey, whose song Oh My Johnny, would have been better off sung as ‘oh, my – not The 2 Johnnies’.

Here, Kielty’s freshman inexperience became apparent. The only thing worse than an interviewer cutting off an interesting story is one who sits back a little too long and lets a dull story overrun. Knowing when to pitch in and move things along is a skill that he will develop, so we shouldn’t be too hard on him but it definitely should feature in the internal post-match analysis.

The show ended with more confidence, as footballer James McClean spoke of his recent diagnosis on the autism spectrum. What once was a taboo subject has been much more to the fore in recent years and his frankness hinted that behind all the frivolity, the Late Late will continue to tackle serious subjects with aplomb.

The new set is a little too bright and the chairs look horribly uncomfortable but we’re probably stuck with those. This really is a show about personality, and Kielty proved that he has that in sufficient measure to keep the show relevant and watchable. His jokes about the Troubles, almost 30 years ago now, announced him as a man who was fearless and funny in equal measure.

Here’s the unasked-for free advice – keep the monologue and give it real bite, broaden the guest list, dim the lights and butt in every now and then and the Late Late will be must-see TV again.