Ryan Tubridy is back on Irish airwaves, but traumatised licence-fee payers will note he has not returned to RTÉ, from which he exited after the institutional breakdown that was the RTÉ payments scandal. He has instead parachuted on to a settee for a wildly forgettable and at moments incredibly irritating new episode of Celebrity Gogglebox Ireland (Virgin Media One, Wednesday, 9pm)
You wonder how keen Tubridy was on this gruelling reality show because he’s barely in it. He and a friend, Mark Wogan, are on hand to watch along to a Netflix documentary about comedy Olympic breakdancer Rachael Gunn and then join a wildly random viewing party for the Kathy Bates/James Caan adaptation of Stephen King’s Misery – the latter very much on brand for Tubridy, who has lately reinvented himself via a literary interview podcast.
But this is a new, humbler Tubs and Gogglebox Ireland confronts us with the revelation that he doesn’t have all that much to say. The most revealing exchange is in his very first scene where he tells Wogan – son of the late broadcaster, Terry – that he’s changed since exiting The Late Late Show, no longer feeling the weight of a national institution on his shoulders. “I’m definitely a less uptight and neurotic person,” he says.
His pal thinks he knows what ails Tubs. “People would deep down prefer if Gay Byrne were doing The Late Late Show,” he says – and who could disagree?
What viewers might disagree with is the prospect of spending 60 minutes with a lucky-dip selection of Irish C-listers, several of whom push right past vaguely annoying and hit warp factor luvvy in under 30 seconds.
That said, you can’t fault Virgin Media for enthusiasm: the broadcaster must have emptied every contact book it could get its mitts on to assemble such celebs as actor and presenter Siobhán McSweeney, radio host Lottie Ryan, British comedian Ricky Tomlinson, Love Island footballer Seán Fitzgerald and his girlfriend Lola Deal, who explains that, up to age 14, she believed leprechauns were real. “I thought they were very small Irish people,” she says.
One surprise participant is the usually button-down current affairs presenter Claire Byrne, who reveals that she and her crew would tuck into spice bags after every episode of Claire Byrne Live on RTÉ. But there’s not enough spice on Gogglebox Ireland, and ultimately you can only feel sympathy for the non-celebs roped into hanging out with their famous pals and required, perhaps contractually, to laugh at their jokes. To paraphrase Bono from a million years ago: thank god tonight it’s them instead of us.