The Late Late Toy Show: Irish TV favourite 'had to keep going'

Ireland's Late Late Toy Show will get people laughing again when it is broadcast on Friday night, according to its presenter Ryan Tubridy.

The iconic RTÉ Christmas TV special will go ahead in spite of the pandemic, with a Roald Dahl theme.

Ryan Tubridy said the show was a tribute to resilience in the face of the "existential threat" of coronavirus.

The show has run for 45 years, with Tubridy at the helm for 11.

The Republic of Ireland is five weeks into a six-week lockdown, during which people are living under the government's highest level of public health restrictions.

An earlier theme for the TV show was scrapped when the pandemic hit in March and plans were redrawn with each lockdown.

Tubridy added: "Only for grit, determination, diligence and an absolute need to keep the show on the road for the Irish children at home and abroad, we wouldn't be here today talking.

"We'd be running a movie [instead]. But we weren't going anywhere; we weren't having any of it and we just had to keep going.

"To have an existential threat on the most joyful programme of the year - of all the years, 2020 - was desperate."

This year it will be available globally with the aim of bringing comfort to Irish expats everywhere.

Children will still perform with remote guest spots and the bill also includes an international singer, whose identity is being kept under wraps. Previous guests included Ed Sheeran and Davy Fitz.

Tubridy said: "Never before did the children, their parents and their grandparents deserve a Toy Show like the one they're going to get on Friday.

"And strangely, this is a show for children, and grandparents, as much as for parents, because too many people have spent time looking through windows and meeting relatives through windows.

"This Toy Show is about coming home. Back on the couch, get the chocolates going and get busy laughing at me, and occasionally with me.

"But laughing, because there hasn't been enough of it."

Nearly all the children who got in touch in the hope of being featured mentioned Covid, Tubridy said.

The show - which will go ahead without a studio audience - has been kept compliant by an "army of people".

But Tubridy said they won't be "going heavy" on the subject of the pandemic, adding Covid "allowed us to mix things up a little bit".

"They're [kids] missing their grannies and they're missing their granddads and they are missing their cousins in Australia and in England and in America.

"We're not going to pretend it hasn't existed, but we'll be doing it with a twist of seasonal silliness because we're allowed.

"Anything goes on Toy Show night."

The Late Late Toy Show aired on Friday 27 November on RTÉ One at 21:35 GMT.