This Toy Show will be for the ‘different’ children
As Ryan Tubridy celebrates ten years hosting the Toy Show, he says this year’s extravaganza is for those who aren’t picked for the team or don’t get into the WhatsApp group. By
On January 1, when RTÉ compiles the list of most watched shows on television, there’s likely to be only one event that pips Ireland beating the All Blacks to the top spot. Nearly 1.35million people tuned into The Late Late Toy Show last year. Last week, when RTÉ released a teaser trailer for Friday’s extravaganza, it almost broke the internet.
The clip aims to encourage families to ‘make it home for Christmas’ and shows excited people of all ages making their way to Ryan Tubridy’s front door — by any means necessary.
As if the Toy Show itself wasn’t a big enough event, a three-part documentary – The Late Late Toy Show Unwrapped — will air in the days leading up to the main broadcast. The mini-series will look at Tubridy’s stand-out moments hosting the show over the past decade.
Sitting down with More, Ryan took a moment out to reflect on his own tenure at the helm of what is now RTÉ’s No 1 annual television extravaganza.
‘This is my number ten so it’s quite a big year for me, so we’re going big,’ he says.
‘We’re doing it slightly different. We were only reminiscing about it yesterday for the Toy Show Unwrapped documentary, about how it has evolved over the years. This year we’ve got a very special message that I’m very keen to get across, which is basically that the world appears to be more peculiar than ever before.
‘There’s a lot of intolerance and a lot of division, a lot of anger and rage and The Toy Show is an escape from all of that, obviously. But one of the things that I’ve been thinking about is, you know, the Kardash ian is at ion of society and the way that everyone has to look the same, the same eyebrows and the same contouring, same hair and that just drives me nuts because that quest for perfection is totally fake and wrong and it doesn’t feel right at all.’
Ryan takes a moment to think and chooses his words carefully. He has always been an ardent supporter of the ISPCC and its antibullying campaign.
And he wants to use The Toy Show platform to celebrate those boys and girls at home who may be, for whatever reason, a bit different.
‘So we’re going to celebrate the child that is a bit different, and by that I mean the child that might not be picked for the team and might not be in the WhatsApp group or get Snapchatted as much as the other child,’ he explains.
‘We want to get the child who mightn’t be asked on as many playdates as somebody else or the slightly older child who isn’t asked for a dance at the disco.
‘And those kids aren’t sad or lonely. This isn’t a maudlin respect for those kids. They would rather go home and write a short story or read a book or bake, or just something that’s holding on to their childhood.
‘They don’t feel that need to be competitive, to Kardashianise their lives, they’re actually happy in their own skin.
‘They don’t have to have a smartphone or go to the disco. They’re okay and we’re just saying to them, “We’ve got your back. We know you’re out there and we’re on your side.” So I’m excited about that.’
The Late Late Toy Show is not only watched at home in Ireland — devotees around the world tune in. Ryan says it’s watched in 103 countries and those elsewhere on the planet can watch it live on the RTÉ Player. Every year, we don’t find out The Late Late Toy Show’s theme until the show airs.
Last year it was Under The Sea and wild horses couldn’t get Ryan to even hint at what we can expect this time around. But he will say he is extremely pleased with the spectacle the team puts on each year. ‘I am proud of the show,’ he says. ‘The live thing is so important because if you’ve ever had to record a show, it just sucks the life out of it; the frisson of danger is gone. ‘Whereas on a live show, especially like something like The Toy Show, it just adds to the mania and unpredictability and the kookiness of it all.
And stuff breaks and sprays where it shouldn’t and the child says something they shouldn’t and that all adds to it.
‘And I know if that was recorded, somebody somewhere, an adult in charge, would say, “Do it again” and then it’s gone. Or “Don’t say that, say something else.”
‘That’s why I love live. It’s the most natural television in a world of unnatural television that’s filtered, edited, cut, changed, repackaged so we are selling another lie.
‘This is TV at its most brutally honest. There’s very little of it around.
‘So I am proud of it, proud that we’re staying live in a world that’s so competitive. If you look at the ratings — when the graph comes in on a Monday, the numbers are there and then we just rise above it, we’re soaring and it’s just very heartening to see a show doing well at the box office in a world that’s so filtered.
THERE’S A LOT OF ANGER AND RAGE AND THE TOY SHOW IS AN ESCAPE FROM ALL OF THAT
‘The competition is intense. I’d say it’s probably the most competitive time that The Late Late Show has ever existed in, in terms of what’s happening around the world, so it’s a much higher pressurised time.’
On his radio show, Ryan told his listeners he’s been struggling to learn a song ahead of the big night.
He also revealed that The Toy Show team is doing something really special this year but that it may be the toughest show yet. So does he think about how long he has left at the helm?
‘I often reflect on my time on the show,’ he admits. ‘I did particularly this year because it is my tenth. It does make you think about “how long?”And I have talked to my family over a pint and asked them what they thought about how long I would do it for.
‘I asked if I should do five more years or even if I would be allowed to do that. Because I might not be asked. Would I do it for ten? I have been asking those questions a lot recently and the truth is that I don’t have the answer.
‘The more I talk and think about it, the more I realise that it is not in my gift. The way the world works, it is not that simple. I don’t have a job for life here, nobody does. ‘There is the polite tap on the shoulder waiting to happen telling me I have been great, thanking me for my service and telling me good night. I am as much ready for that as I am for my own voluntary departure. I am a chess piece and that’s life. ‘I didn’t think I would get ten years, to be honest. I didn’t think I would get it ten years ago; I was doing Saturday nights and thought I was going to go somewhere else. ‘I was never going to do Gay’s 37 years and I thought I would do a little longer than Pat’s ten, so I will probably land somewhere in the middle.’ Last year’s theme saw many young talents dancing in octopus and seahorse costumes. Ryan was very involved and donned a huge red crab costume, playing the part of Sebastian the lobster from The Little Mermaid. He finds it incredible and slightly odd that he has become such a part of so many people’s lives. But he recognises that, for many children, The Toy Show is as important as their favourite football or rugby player. ‘There are moments that always jump out at me,’ he says. ‘You can be a professional athlete or a rugby player or footballer... they become really well known and everyone follows them and they retire because that’s life and then the next one comes along. That’s the cycle.
‘I have this weirdness, a continuity that I now am doing a show that every 18-year-old watching will have been eight for their first one.
‘They are now young adults who have grown up with me and me with them. That’s really strange but heartening when you have become the toy guy and they are being nostalgic at 18.
‘That terrorises me with fear because of the reality of the march of time. But it is heartening. That’s why we do it, the families gathered round the TV in their pyjamas with hot chocolate and staying up late for the first time. That is magical when you are a kid.’
THIS IS TV AT ITS MOST BRUTALLY HONEST. THERE’S VERY LITTLE OF IT AROUND. SO I AM PROUD OF IT.