TV & Radio

Ryan Tubridy, always ready to laugh at himself, confesses he’s a big fan of the Trumps

Radio: The RTÉ host hasn’t gone full Maga, but wears his values on his sleeve

Ryan Tubridy: despite his showiness, there’s a self-deprecating streak to his on-air persona. Photograph: RTÉ

Mick Heaney's face
Mick Heaney
Fri Jul 15 2022 - 05:00

He’s a self-described nerd when it comes to American politics, to the point of writing a book on JFK, but it’s still a surprise when Ryan Tubridy (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) confesses, somewhat sheepishly, that he’s a fan of Trumps.

“Come on, I love it,” he shouts theatrically. Lest anyone think Tubridy has gone full Maga, however, the object of his affection is not the destructively narcissistic former US president but Top Trumps, the card game so beloved of schoolboys, both young and overgrown.

Tubridy’s choice of pastime further buffs his geeky credentials, particularly his admission that his new set of cards features great figures in history. “I can hear your laughter through the studio door,” he says, with a chuckle of his own. It’s all a bit showy, but it also underlines the self-deprecating streak to his on-air persona. On Wednesday he remarks that he’s soon going on holidays — “I’ll be leaving you all” — only to wryly imagine his audience’s reaction: “I know, hallelujah.”

It’s just as well that Tubridy can laugh at himself, because he spends a lot of time talking about, well, himself: without some self-mockery, his monologues would resemble travel schedules. Among the topics covered are a trip to a Westlife concert in Dublin, a stay in Cork, and stopovers in Cashel and Mitchelstown.

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Ryan Tubridy’s desire to connect with people could seem stagy — he describes people he’s just met as friends — but it comes across as genuine, rooted in his sense of decency

For variety, he ruminates on his taste in television comedy: “Very few things make me laugh on TV.” (He could try watching reruns of The Late Late Show if he’s looking for risible fare.) Even a news snippet about excess packaging acts as a segue to his riff on Top Trumps. But the host’s lightly self-mocking tone prevents his spiel from descending into total solipsism.

Tubridy has another disarming characteristic. His desire to connect with people should, on the face of it, seem stagy — he describes people he’s just met as friends — but it comes across as genuine, rooted in his sense of decency. This comes across during Tuesday’s interview with Terry O’Neill, who talks about his late son Cathal.

Terry and his daughter Ciara describe Cathal, who was born with spina bifida, as an enthusiastic, energetic teenager who wasn’t bound by his wheelchair, an impression buoyed by the host’s upbeat tone. The conversation takes a melancholy turn when the O’Neills talk about Cathal’s sudden death, in November 2020 — “He just went to bed one Sunday night,” Terry recalls — but despite the occasional maudlin phrase from Tubridy (“The laughter stops”), the mood is oddly inspirational.

Part of this is down the O’Neills’ resilient attitude — “We had him for 16 years, we were fierce lucky,” says Terry — and partly thanks to Cathal’s legacy: his father has helped build a new “inclusive playground” in Cork for children with neurophysical disabilities. But it’s also due to the host’s instinct to look on the bright side, be it of life or of people. Tubridy’s praise for the new playground as “so fair and so kind and so democratic” isn’t just palpably heartfelt but also seems to sum up his aspirations, both personal and civic.

His approach has limits. Wednesday’s interview with the novelist Winnie Li covers a difficult subject — the American-born author was raped by a teenage boy in Belfast in 2008, and her writing deals with the traumatic aftermath — but Tubridy sounds awkward, asking an ill-considered question on whether the #metoo movement has gone too far. (Li thinks it hasn’t gone far enough.) That said, he’s also considerate, asking his guest’s permission to discuss the harrowing events in Belfast. If the resulting conversation is uncomfortable at times, it’s inevitable given the issues, and maybe even necessary. Either way, it’s a powerful item. Joking aside, Tubridy’s sincerity is arguably his strongest card.

Over on The Last Word (Today FM, weekdays), host Matt Cooper carries a story that thankfully lacks violence or grief but is still prosaically nightmarish. Cooper talks to the behavioural specialist Brian McDonald, who recently started to encounter unexplained obstacles with his everyday financial transactions: direct debits were cancelled, and he was unable to transfer money.

‘I’m sorry for laughing, but you understand from the outside how ridiculous it all looks,’ Matt Cooper tells his guest, adding, ‘I can’t imagine it’s very pleasant’

Eventually, he suspected his name was on an EU sanctions list, something confirmed when he was briefly detained by the UK Border Force. The sanctions aren’t aimed at him, however, but are more likely intended for the Moscow-based Irish journalist Bryan MacDonald, of Russian broadcaster RT. This bizarre instance of mistaken identity is further muddied by the Department of Foreign Affairs telling Cooper’s guest that his case isn’t showing up in its system, effectively washing its hands of the affair.

Cooper is gobsmacked by what he’s hearing: “This is almost the definition of Kafkaesque.” Indeed, the situation is so grotesque that at one point he guffaws in disbelief. “I’m sorry for laughing, but you understand from the outside how ridiculous it all looks,” Cooper says, adding, “I can’t imagine it’s very pleasant.” McDonald says the situation is frustrating, which seems quite the understatement. It’s a very modern, faintly terrifying story, providing a reminder that the grinding warfare in Ukraine affects people in the unexpected ways.

If Cooper is jocular in his reaction to McDonald’s experience, one suspects he mightn’t be so good-humoured were it to happen to him. On Wednesday, Cooper talks to the business journalist Charlie Weston about low public trust in banks, not least due to poor customer service.

When Weston discusses online banks using chatbots, his host first sighs, then unleashes an uncharacteristically passionate tirade. “Do you not find yourself utterly frustrated? It builds your blood pressure up, trying to negotiate with a chatbot, be it with a bank, or an insurer, or complaints to JustEat or Deliveroo when they’ve failed to send you the food to the right place?”

Sounding taken aback by this outburst, Weston offers assent. Cooper, meanwhile, regains his equilibrium. “I’ve just been told I sound like a grumpy auld fella going off on that one,” he says ruefully. Given Cooper’s usual aversion to florid gestures, it’s akin to Howard Beale’s meltdown in the movie Network. His calm exterior notwithstanding, he’s clearly just one missed takeaway from getting mad as hell.

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Radio Moment of the Week

The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd is an absorbing presence on Sunday with Miriam (RTÉ Radio 1), as Miriam O’Callaghan’s questions about her guest’s Irish-American family take the interview in less predictable directions. Dowd, an avowed Democrat, is good on the psychology of the presidency — “The moment they’re elected, that’s when the insecurities eat away at them” — but avoids partisan sniping, reserving her strongest words for her liberal peers: “Some Democrats radiate disdain.”

Her open attitude stems from her relationships with her siblings, who are Republican, despite her parents once being Democrats. Or as Dowd puts it, “The whole family became conservative because my mother had the hots for Ronald Reagan.” To paraphrase the late US congressman Tip O’Neill, all politics is personal.

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