It takes all of 15 seconds for Graham Norton to remind us of the chasm between his BBC chat show and the stolid fare being served over on RTÉ One by Ryan Tubridy's Late Late Show. This has nothing to do with the difference in the wattage of guests (Norton is nattering with Lady Gaga, Tubs with twanging Liverpudlian Nathan Carter).
The first distinction is that Norton, returning after the summer off, opens with a fusillade of jokes about Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn and the Russian chemical-warfare attack in Salisbury.
The gags aren't that funny – one essentially amounted to a picture of May next to a horse – but they are energetic and audacious. Can you imagine Tubridy kicking off the Late Late with a pointed jab at Leo Varadkar or a cruel observation about the Presidential election?
Upbraiding the Late Late and Tubridy as tin-pot entertainment has become something of a national pastime. And it's true the presenter, at 45, still bears an unnerving resemblance to an adolescent trying on his dad's suitcase. He would certainly benefit from some of Norton's whiz-bang hyperactivity.
With approximately three million viewers against the Late Late's average of 650,000, the Bandon-born host inevitably has the starrier line-up in his first episode back. Gathered on his couch are new Doctor Who Jodie Whittaker, Star is Born duo Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper and an impassive Ryan Gosling (who has apparently left his personality in the dressing room).
Tubridy, by contrast, has rugby player Mike Ross and the aforementioned Carter. He is also joined by predecessor Pat Kenny and hosts an impromptu quiz based around guessing the price of antiques (one of the contestants is Italian so we are treated to Tubridy saying "buongiorno" in his best "When's Your Dolmio Day?" accent).
As another presidential election looms, it looks like a possible masterstroke to invite Pat Kenny on. Seven years after the he presented a debate that changed the dynamics of the last presidential contest, what are his thoughts on the Sean Gallagher "Tweetgate" controversy? Kenny, far more human in the guest's chair than he was during his decade hosting the Late Late, seems on the brink of saying something interesting about the incident.
Kenny pays tribute to his “core team” of researchers and producers and appears poised to put the blame elsewhere. But there is no knife-sticking, and the conversation moves on to some pat bromides about the present state of his career. Generating headlines doesn’t seem to be what the Late Late is about.
Tubridy, it's worth acknowledging, faces an impossible task in competing not only with Graham Norton but with the ghost of Late Late Shows past. Ireland was a very different place when Gay Byrne's Late Late was at the height of its influence. As the country was slowly asphyxiated by Catholic ethno-nationalism the Late Late founds its voice as a release valve amid the madness and the tedium.
Byrne could be preening and starchy. He was also empathic and insightful, a lightning rod for a nation working through a collective psychodrama. Tubs, by contrast, gets to share embarrassing old footage of Nathan Carter on Top of the Pops. He keeps things moving along and has a certain flyboy charisma. But he can't possibly win.
Meanwhile, over on BBC One, Norton is at the peak of his gadfly powers. Whittaker gives it the full Yorkshire lass and Gaga and Cooper are revealed to be fountains of Hollywood treacle as they wax sincere about A Star is Born.
Gosling, it is true, looks slightly stunned by Norton’s rat-tat-tat pratfalling (he lacks the obsequiousness of US chat show hosts).
Yet the presenter is in such full flow a glum interviewee hardly matters. The Late Late would obviously be more interesting with Lady Gaga and the new Doctor Who as guests. But what it really needs is an infusion of Norton’s twinkling irreverence.
