ELEVENTY-SOMETHING WEEKS into the lockdown and here at Sofa Watch it’s becoming clear that including the word ‘sofa’ in the title for this regular article was ambitious at best.
Celebrities are showing up on late-night shows perched on all manner of furniture: sitting on kitchen stools, draped on futons or – more often than not – plonked on bog standard office chairs like many of the rest of us who recently joined the ranks of workers-from-home.
Is our own Late Late Show now home to the only remaining couch in the TV universe that experiences the occasional pleasure of being sat upon?
Feel free to weigh in on the above ramblings in the comments section. For the moment, here’s what’s happening on RTÉ and the BBC tonight, along with a roundup of what you may have missed from the US shows this week.
Mary Lou McDonald has beeen returning to work this week after a weeks-long Covid-19 ordeal which she said floored her and hurt “every part” of her body.
“I couldn’t sustain a conversation, which as you can imagine for me, is hell,” she said earlier this week.
The Sinn Féin leader is feeling much better now and will be having a Late Late conversation with Ryan Tubridy tonight in the latest ‘hybrid’ episode of the show.
Once again, it’s a mix of in-person and on-video guests.
Singer-songwriter Dermot Kennedy will be live in Montrose. Orla Tinsley, writer, campaigner and Cystic Fibrosis advocate, will be speaking from her home in New York.
Andrew Scott, star of Fleabag and Sherlock, is set to dial in – while Patrick Kielty will also appear from his home in London.
Meanwhile Hozier’s recent Late Late Show rendition of The Parting Glass has been doing well in the charts this week. All proceeds from downloads are going to the ISPCC/Childline.
Chris Hemsworth is the star attraction on Graham’s show tonight.
The Thor actor revealed earlier this week that he accidentially became one of *those* people as the cononavirus lockdown started.
“My wife was ordering a box of toilet paper like three months ago,” Hemsworth recalled.
And (she) thought it was 15 rolls and ordered 15 boxes, so unintentionally, we’re stocked.
Also beaming in tonight are the always ebullient Richard E Grant, and Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Joe Lycett will be fulfilling the role of the ‘comedian at the end of the couch’ (but again, he won’t necessarily be on a couch).
Norton has been getting a bit of flak online in recent weeks as some viewers reckon the hastily reworked format – specifically, the lack of a studio audience – has rendered much of the show flat and awkward.
Some US hosts in similar situations have resorted to canned laughter to punctuate the post-punchline silences, but it’s unlikely that’s something the BBC will countenance anytime soon.
As Norton said himself when his at-home series debuted two weeks ago he’s not certain this even is The Graham Norton Show, but it’s “as close as we can get it”.
Over in the US, Better Call Saul’s Bob Odenkirk has been doing the rounds of the late-night shows to tout his show, the fifth season of which has just concluded on Netflix – including the below appearance on Conan.
The pair spent much of their catch-up chatting about the “pure foolishness” they got up to in the early days of their career at Saturday Night Live.
Odenkirk also revealed his family had had a frightening recent brush with Covid-19 – his 21-year-old son Nate is still recovering after an arduous two-week ordeal with coronavirus.
Jimmy Kimmel, like the rest of the US hosts, is also broadcasting from home.
He caught up with Arnold Schwarzenegger this week. The cameos by the former California governor’s pet miniature horse and donkey were, by far, the most interesting thing about the segment.
The equine pair – Whiskey (the horse) and Lulu (the donkey) – have become something of a social media hit amid the US lockdown in recent weeks.
Next week will mark ten years since the death of Gerry Ryan.
The likes of Dave Fanning, Joe Duffy, Harry Crosbie and Fiona Looney all feature in a documentary about the broadcaster set to air on RTÉ One on Sunday night (9.30pm).
Gerry, once he had established himself on radio, had long desired to take over as full-time host of the Late Late Show, but never made it to the hotseat.
He did fill in once, for Pat Kenny, back in 2008. The full show is up on Youtube if you happen to be particularly curious:
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say