How do you explain the concept of The Late Late Toy Show to someone living outside Ireland? Christmas before Christmas? TV-studio-turned-Santa’s-workshop? Two hours of kids and toys?

“But it’s more than that,” host Patrick Kielty says, with a laugh. The Co Down native is preparing to host his third The Late Late Toy Show tomorrow evening, Friday 5 December.

“It’s the maddest, maddest thing. It’s very weird to try to break it down to people,” he says, adding that one of the closest analogies is: “It’s Ireland’s version of Thanksgiving.

“I worked it out last year. I think that America has this event at the end of November where families get together – it’s not Christmas, and they have a focal point, and they celebrate, and they give thanks, and all of those things.

“I think that the Toy Show is for people who maybe can’t get home for Christmas, or for people who live together. It’s a thing which brings people together before they go and they do Christmas. It’s a uniquely Irish thing.”

“I defy anybody who watches the Toy Show not to want to watch it again. It’s just got a little bit of magic about it that keeps pulling people in. So, instead of explaining it, you just watch the first 10 minutes and you’ll get it.”

What is interesting is that, because the RTÉ player now goes around the world, The Late Late Toy Show enjoys international success. Last year’s Home Alone-themed spectacle broke a streaming record on the RTÉ player with 556,000 streams.

A whopping 1.5 million individuals watched the show on TV, and it was streamed in 139 countries. And 21% of live streams were from outside Ireland.

Reflecting on why the show means so much to so many, Patrick explains it’s about “the anticipation of Christmas” for children.

“What list am I on? Naughty or nice? What will Santa bring?” As for adults (who invariably become children for the night), it’s about nostalgia for when they watched it and seeing those first glimmers of excitement in the build-up to Christmas.”

“Parents don’t have the time to bring kids around to the stores anymore, or go through catalogues, and so for Ireland to have a show where all these toys are on display, there’s a real feel-good factor about it.”

Behind the scenes

There may be a certain immediacy about the show for viewers, who are transported inside a snow globe in one sitting, but for Patrick and all the production team, it’s a heck of a lot of preparation. The theme for this year’s show and names of special guests have been kept tightly under wraps and Patrick had his first The Late Late Toy Show meeting in June of this year.

Then there’s the elements you simply can’t plan. Like trying to coordinate children on live TV and somehow keeping it together when they come out with outrageous comments that make viral moments.

“I think that is the key to the show,” Patrick remarks. “You actually want them to come on and say something that you absolutely did not expect. The brilliant thing about having a lot of the kids is that they are brilliantly unpredictable.

“Sometimes what will happen is you say, ‘tell us about the toy’. And they say: ‘never mind the toy, Paddy, I want to talk to you about…’ And the second that you look remotely worried about that idea, you’re dead. It’s very much, ‘what would you rather talk about?’ Everybody goes into a different space, and it just feels a bit more random and a bit more fun.

“You have to remember that, for every kid that’s walking out there, it’s such a moment for them and their family. That’s the thing you want. You want the best version of those kids to come across and so far, we’ve managed to do that.”

Patrick says he will probably spend Christmas this year at home in Dundrum, a rural townland just outside Newcastle in Co Down. “That’s always a special place. We’ve had lots of Christmases there. I think there’s something about a country Christmas. We’ve got a little pub down the road where a lot of the farmers go and they open for an hour on Christmas morning.”

A walk on the beautiful Murlough Beach is another staple, he says. “I think Christmas is a time to decompress and clear the head. It’s always nice to be able to do that when you’re from the countryside, going home lets you do that.”

When asked about other traditions, Patrick mentions Christmas recipes and decorations that have been passed down from one generation to another through the years. One in particular has sentimental value – a papier-mâché tree he made at the age of six that “has been knocking around for years”.

“There’s a balance between doing the new and traditional stuff. I think when you have kids” [Patrick has two boys, Milo (9) and James (7)] there’s certain stuff they like doing, like reading The Night Before Christmas.”

A cherished memory from Patrick’s childhood in rural Co Down was, of course, watching The Late Late Toy Show with his family. “We would have been watching it and foolishly assuming that some of the toys that were on the show would make their way to us,” he laughs.

Reflections as host

To now host one of Ireland’s most-beloved programmes is therefore, he says: “Something I haven’t quite got my head around. I think that is always a bit of a pinch me moment.

“When you look at the history and how long the Toy Show’s been going [since 1975], to be the person who’s pulling that together and trying to steer that ship, you don’t want to think about that too much – that would just ‘put your lights out’, as they would say in Dundrum.”

Patrick took over from Ryan Tubridy as presenter of The Late Late Show in 2023. Despite an accomplished career hosting various programmes at BBC, ITV and Channel 4, he describes taking the helm of the world’s second longest-running late-night talk show (after The Tonight Show in the United States) as “pretty daunting.”

“I think I was lucky at the time of my career that I’d learned enough to realise that you can only really be yourself, and people will either warm to who you are or not. There’s not a lot you can do to change it, apart from being the most natural open version of yourself you can be. That helped going into it.

“Being the first Northern Irish host, there was a little bit of noise around that at the time. Then people suddenly realise, oh yeah, maybe he’s more like us than we thought!” he jokes. “Ultimately we’ve got a lot more in common than we think generally in life.”