THERE WAS MUCH speculation about what Ryan Tubridy would do next after RTÉ Director General Kevin Bakhurst announced last August that the veteran presenter would not be returning to RTÉ in any capacity.
At the time, one beloved writer and cultural commentator prophetically wrote: “Maybe he’ll start wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses. Maybe he’ll take up bodybuilding and get shredded and start doing street-fights. Maybe he’ll start a podcast. Nobody knows, that’s the beauty of it! He’ll almost certainly start a podcast.” Guess who.
Well folks, it took a little longer than expected, but last week Tubridy finally announced the inevitable and told his Instagram followers that he’d be taking a break from his Virgin Radio show after a little over three months in order to launch his new podcast. The Toy Man entered the Virgin Radio cocoon and emerged a Book Man.
Sponsored by Eason, the format of The Bookshelf podcast is simple and sound. Tubridy has a guest on and he asks the guest to talk the listeners through their favourite childhood book, a book that made them cry, and a book that changed their life.
Tubridy’s first guest is David Walliams, once of Little Britain fame, though now better known as the author over 20 children’s books which have a cumulative total of 37 million copies worldwide.
Walliams – whose books have titles like Mr Stink and Gangsta Granny Strikes Again! – chose the poems of British poet Philip Larkin (of Leaving Cert fame) and a book by Nobel Prize-winner Kazuo Ishiguro, known for such works as Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go and Klara and the Sun. Walliams brought one of Ishiguro’s less vaunted works, The Unconsoled.
As Tubridy asks his questions, though, there is little suggestion that he has any intention of probing the substance of the books Walliams has chosen. Tubridy does not reference specific events, chapters, details, images from the work Walliams has brought. If you come to this podcast expecting to learn anything specific about, say, The Unconsoled, that you couldn’t have picked up from its Wikipedia page, then you will leave in search of another podcast.
This might be an issue of planning. Maybe Walliams didn’t let Tubridy know ahead of time which books he would be bringing. That is something Tubridy will have to get to grips with if he wants to crack the world of podcasting, an art form that is typically much more tightly planned than the spontaneity of live radio.
It could also have been a conscious choice. In the inaugural episode of his podcast, opposite someone markedly more famous than he, Tubridy seems happy to take a back seat and let Walliams muse at relative length about how Larkin’s personal life in formed his work and tell stories about how he met Ishiguro at a dinner for Mikhail Gorbachev.
But ultimately, it feels as though a conscious decision has been made not to focus on the books that Walliams has brought, but instead on Walliams himself, with the books as not much more than a tool to move the conversation along.
It makes for a book podcast that feels a little light on actual book talk. When Tubridy does ask about the books, he tends to ask questions around the books, like: “When do you read Philip Larkin?” This isn’t an uninteresting question by any means, but Walliams’ answer is only of any interest if you’re interested in David Walliams. And this podcast is not called The Walliamshelf.
Nevertheless, conversation between the two men is undeniably pleasant. Unlike the unforgiving and breakneck pace of live radio, the podcast format allows Tubridy more time to think, and he benefits from it. As with many podcasts that follow the Desert Island Discs format (Desert Island Discs probably didn’t invent it, but they are one of the older examples) of picking a few things you like and explaining why you like them, the “things” actually serve as a conduit for deeper conversation. One of the episode’s strongest moments, for example, comes when Walliams’ stories of being read to as a child segue into an exploration of grief by both men as they reflect upon having lost their respective fathers.
When it comes to the podcast’s identity, The Bookshelf faces the same Catch-22 that faces all book podcasts. Speak intelligently about books and run the risk of being labelled a snob, or speak plainly about popular books and risk being thought of as a dilettante by those who take terribly seriously the business of reading books.
The timing of this podcast should be perfect. As Ireland bursts at the seams with literary talent, one of its best-known broadcasters has launched a brand new, high-production-value podcast about books. It is hard to think of a more influential new author in literary fiction than Sally Rooney. Paul Lynch’s The Prophet Song is the most recent winner of The Booker Prize. There are two Irish writers shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award - the world’s most valuable annual prize for a single work of fiction published in English.
Tubridy has thrived thus far in his life as a generalist. He’s proven himself as a man who can competently interview a cystic fibrosis campaigner one minute, Robbie Keane the next, move swiftly on to grill Gerry Adams and then wind it down with Mario Rosenstock. Live radio, often on in the background of a car or a kitchen, is one thing.
Podcast listeners, however, tend to be much more deliberate about how they structure their listening diet. A podcast about books can also be a podcast about people, but it must also a podcast about books, and Tubridy might need to narrow his scope in order to make sure he’s hitting both targets.
Episode 1 of The Bookshelf is by no means a must-listen, but this is a podcast that could work as long as Tubridy is prepared to work hard for it. Now, when is he doing the roadshow?
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say