Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift


He was a self-hating mick and star of 18th century salons, the chat-shows of their day, where he would hold forth with his poetic chums Alexander Pope and John Gay. Like Podge and Rodge, they weren't afraid of willie jokes.


The Late Late Show (with Gay Byrne)


If some media-studies students are to be believed, Byrne started his tenure at the Late Late by inventing sex and having a fist fight with a nun. In fact, the show's reputation was built on social change that was already in motion amongst the Irish people. The Late Late just lent them the hall, really. But to be fair, it did provide a forum for the national discussion during this time of great change, and Byrne was a paternalistic and safe-pair of hands as a host. On occasion, he let his own feelings run away with him, like when he interviewed Annie Murphy (who had a son with Bishop Eamon Casey), or the time he endorsed Brian Lenihan as president.


Eamonn Andrews


From amateur pugilist to boxing commentator to chat-show host with the BBC. He was the first of many Irishmen to sell the gift of the gab to the British, despite not necessarily having it. His charmingly ham-fisted links were parodied by a Round The Horne character called Seamus Android. "Speaking of cheese sandwiches, have you come far?" was one of them.


Terry Wogan


In the 1960s Terry Wogan absconded from RTé, where he'd presented quiz and variety shows like Jackpot, and joined the BBC. Easy-going charm and ready wit were already his stock in trade by the time he began to host the Wogan chat show, which ran from 1982 until 1992. He's a charmer, but he wasn't afraid to occasionally tell it like it was. "They're laughing at you – they're not laughing with you," he told David Icke who had just claimed to be the son of God.


Nighthawks


A stab at yoof-programming from RTé, Nighthawks was more a variety show than a chat show, but it did have a discussion component. It brought an end to Charles Haughey's career when Sean Doherty, former minister for justice, told host Shay Healy that his government had been responsible for illegally phone tapping journalists 10 years earlier.


Pat Kenny


How Pat Kenny ever thought it was worthwhile to move away from the comfort zone of political panel shows into the much more emotionally complex arena of chat shows is a mystery to me, particularly given how well he's slipped back into his former role with The Frontline. But Pat took the helm of RTé's flagship show for 10 years with, well, mixed results. If Eamonn Andrews was Seamus Android, then Kenny was R2D2 to his C3PO. Although when you closed your eyes he had a certain warmth (seriously), he was far too physically self-conscious, and didn't have any sense of the ridiculousness of his role. (A necessity in the post-Partridge world.) That said, he wasn't as bad as people made out, despite, towards the end, everything he did being the subject of ridicule.


The Dunphy Show


It was always going to take a brave man to take on the might of The Late Late Show head to head, and finally the task was taken up by full-on mentalist and contrarian Eamon Dunphy. Iconoclasts like Dunphy are better as guests than hosts and the sight of him on his best behaviour didn't really appeal to the Irish public. Broadcast from Dublin's Helix theatre every Friday night and projected to last for 30 episodes, TV3 lost its nerve and the programme was cancelled after just 12. The theme song was the Clash's 'I Fought The Law'. "I fought the law," Dunphy reiterated on the last night of the show. "And the law won," he added sadly.


Ryan Confidential


Last year when Gerry Ryan filled in for Pat Kenny on The Late Late Show we got a glimpse of a strange parallel universe which exists only in Ryan's head. Only in RTé with its civil-service mentality would a middle-aged shock jock be considered the right person for a one-on-one interview show. In Ryan Confidential he's spoken to the likes of Colin Farrell, Boyzone and Hugh Hefner. Some say he's 'matured'. By this they mean he now wears glasses and has developed a "thoughtful" face. Beyond this he doesn't seem hugely interested in other people and says every word as though he's making love to it in a bath of custard.


The Podge and Rodge show


"What do the youth like?"


"I don't have a clue."


"What about a chat show in which minor celebrities are sexually assaulted by puppets?"


"That's as good as anything I've got, let's go for it."


Saturday night with Miriam


Boy chat shows use manly second names in the title – Kenny! Tubridy! Wogan! Girl chat shows use the softer Christian name approach. So Miriam O'Callaghan is known as simply 'Miriam' rather than 'O'Callaghan' which, now that I mention it, does sound like the name of a cop in a Clint Eastwood movie. Television producers argue that audiences don't respond well to ladies in the role of chat-show host, but Miriam cut her teeth on political thigh bones so she tends to do just fine whenever she gets guests worth interviewing.


The Lucy Kennedy Show


"Hey, why don't we get someone who's studied at the feet of puppets and who has a tabloid understanding of the universe and then give her, for the most part, other RTé presenters to interview! It could be brilliant." (It wasn't brilliant at all.)