Tubridy eases into Norton seat with cool mix of confidence and chutzpah

RADIO REVIEW:THE WEEK before he started work for the BBC, Ryan Tubridy received some cautionary advice from the presenter he would be temporarily replacing, Graham Norton.

In an on-air interview to introduce Tubridy to the listeners of his Saturday morning radio programme, Norton warned his fellow Irishman that the trickiest part of the job was pronouncing quirky British placenames.

Judging by the first edition of his show (Ryan Tubridy, BBC Radio 2, Saturdays; simulcast on RTÉ 2XM), this counsel has been heeded by the RTÉ star. Over the course of three hours, Tubridy did not tackle any oddly named locales. Indeed, aside from the odd reference to texts from Cardiff or the weather in London, he made scant concession to the fact that he was broadcasting in Britain at all.

As he started his eight-week stint, any notion that Tubridy would alter his style quickly evaporated. Instead, he constantly referred back to his life and work in Ireland, whether chatting to traffic reporter Bobbie Pryor about the road between Dublin and Galway or talking about previous guests on the Late Late Show. This may reassure the RTÉ hierarchy, but might not be the best way to build a relationship with British listeners.

His approach had less to do with parochialism than sticking to his comfort zone in what was otherwise a new departure. In that context, it worked. Tubridy was disarming yet confident from the off, joking about the enunciation difficulties his own name caused for British people, even reading an e-mail from the BBC’s pronunciation unit on the matter.

For all the relaxed manner, however, there were signs he was trying too hard to prove himself to his new public. Within the first hour, he mentioned that he had met Take That, Barack Obama and the Queen.

He later quipped about picking up all the names he had dropped, but only because he was slagged by his newspaper reviewer Julia Raeside.

Elsewhere, Tubridy departed from Norton’s frothy celebrity format by interviewing Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell. Given Campbell’s divisive status in Britain, it was a risky move, but yielded an arresting and candid encounter. Tubridy showed less chutzpah during his deathly dull chat with Andrea Corr, enlivened only by playing the wrong song.

Such mishaps aside, he acquitted himself well.