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One of the stars of the Toy Show, Brian Óg, opened the show by taking over Patrick Kielty’s host duties. When Kielty asked him to sing Wagon Wheel on a karaoke machine – as he had on last week’s show – Brian Óg said he’d prefer the real deal. Cue Nathan Carter arriving for a duet.
“The phone’s been hopping all week,” Brian Óg said of the past week before promising he’d have Kielty’s job for real “in the next 10 or 12 years”.
It comes as this year’s Toy Show Appeal reached over €5 million in donations since its launch ahead of last week’s episode.
The Late Late Show kicked off proceedings with a glamourous announcement: five new faces we’ll be seeing on Dancing with the Stars from January 5, 2025 onwards.
Television presenter Elaine Crowley, chef Kevin Dundon, social media star Kayleigh Trappe, Olympic gold medalist Rhys McClenaghan and actress Yasmin Seky are the latest celebrity dancers added to the line-up.
Earlier this week, Mickey Joe Harte, Olympian Jack Woolley, comedian Gearóid Farrelly, Mrs. Brown’s Boys actor Danny O’Carroll and former Miss Universe Ireland, Aishah Akorede were confirmed as contestants in the new season of the competition.
“They haven’t stopped laughing since I told them,” Elaine said about telling her family the news. “I’ve never been so nervous in my life. I don’t know why I’m doing this, I must be nuts.”
New judge Karen Byrne also joined the group to talk about going from pro dancer on the show to judge and why she will “say it how it is”.
“I could be tough but I’ll be encouraging.”
Actor Rupert Everett told Kielty about his failed attempt to become an Irish citizen after Brexit.
“I decided to move to Ireland at one point when Brexit happened. Boris Johnson became the Prime Minister in England, I thought, ‘That’s enough. I’m moving to Ireland’,” he said.
“I have an Irish grandmother. I thought ‘I can get an Irish passport’. Unfortunately, she was born in England, and then she came back to Ireland, so I couldn’t get an Irish passport. So my new life was aborted, finally, unfortunately.”
Looking back on his career, he said he would consider doing a sequel to My Best Friend’s Wedding with Julia Roberts.
“They’re difficult to pull off, those kind of things, really,” he said, adding “it just never happened.” He said he had a “sweet” reunion with his costars on the film’s 20th anniversary and that he would “love to see a sequel”.
Irish athlete Ciara Mageean joined Patrick Kielty to talk about winning gold at the European Championships and the disappointment she felt after an injury laid waste to her Olympic dream.
”I’ve been battling with this injury for quite a long time,” she said of her Achille’s tendon injury.
“Unfortunately for me, something gave a little bit more in my final prep. I flew early into Paris to try to rectify it, had two cortisone injections, but ultimately, the day before I was to race my first race, I had to make the decision to withdraw.”
She described the grieving process she went through after having to pause her Olympic dream and how she felt like “the biggest failure” when she came home.
“In many ways, it’s the death of a dream. It was my life’s work to get out there and race on the Olympic stage.”
Irish peacekeepers recently returned from South Lebanon spoke about life in Camp Shamrock.
Commandant Jane O’Neill recalled her recent experience there as “the most challenging one”, describing it as “a dangerous operating environment”.
“We definitely got to put all our training to the test,” she added.
Private Adam Higgins, one of the youngest peacekeepers deployed as part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said he would still encourage people to consider it as a career path.
“I think everyone should do it least,” he said. “I think it really puts into perspective what you want to do in life.”
- The Late Late Show will return for a New Year’s Eve special on December 31.