Some RTE viewers were less than impressed with Patrick Kielty’s opening monologue for the Late Late Show’s 2025 return, branding the jokes “cringe” worthy.
The Late Late Show started with a bang in 2025, running a TradFest special featuring folk singer-songwriter Aoife Scott, musician Wallis Bird, singer-songwriter Mike Hanrahan, and sean-nos singer Sean Keane among others.
While viewers praised some of the stunning performances, including a touching tribute to the late, great Johnny Duhan, some did not enjoy the hosts opening set of jokes.
Opening up the first Late Late Show of the season, the host launched into a joke about dry January and the weather warnings put in place by Met Eireann over the last week, before making a quip about the Status Orange warnings and Orange Order parades in Belfast.
Patrick then continued to joke about the cold as he praised Colin Farrell for his Gloden Globe win for HBO’s Penguin, sharing: “It’s so cold this week, an Irish penguin was actually voted Best Actor at the Golden Globes.”
A picture of a penguin flying down a ramp popped up on the screen as Patrick joked that this was the Banshees of Inisherin star arriving back to Dublin Airport. Continuing to congratulate Irish stars for their screen success, the Down funnyman gave Kneecap a nod for being longlisted in seven award categories in the Baftas, joking that he “wasn’t sure” if the awards “thought that one through either”.
The visual gags kept flowing as Patrick then proceeded to show pictures of Gladiator 2 lead man Paul Mescal, Bob Dylan biopic star Timothee Chalamet, and the iconic Paddington all clad in DJ Provai’s balaclava.
Viewers were not so impressed by the jokes, with some branding them as “unfunny” while others shared they found them “cringe”.
“Time for another year of Kielty stifling his laughter at his own jokes, and interviewing TikTok stars,” one viewer penned.
Another wrote: “Kielty tells unfunny nordie joke… Pretends to corpse… Repeat ad infinitum.”
While a third shared: “Nobody down here cares about the Northern Ireland jokes”.
One more who was quite impressed by the TradFest special appeared to be quite taken back by a photo of Paddington in a Kneecap style tricolour balaclava, posting: “Turned on the Late Late Show to be confronted by this cursed image.”
While another viewer replied: “He even insinuated Paddington had a bomb in the suitcase, it was cringe to watch and it’s not his first time playing politics.”