How the Late Late Toy Show became an unlikely Irish TV institution
Ireland’s cultural calendar, a television event that draws huge ratings, unites the diaspora and is parsed as a barometer for the mood of the nation.Expectation builds months in advance, rumours about the theme, leaks about participants, sometimes alarm that the formula may change.At 9.30pm on Friday the theme music will play and it will begin: the 2020 Late Late Toy Show – an annual institution built around a host, his jumpers, children, toys and some indefinable ingredient that has kept the nation rapt year after year, decade after decade.It started in 1975 as a segment in the Late Late Show, RTÉ’s long-running weekly chatshow, and expanded to take over an entire show each year, turning into an extravaganza that has at times included an
