After a long period doing shows to an empty studio the presenter was delighted to announce that he will once again have an audience for The Late Late Show.
The new series is back this Friday 3rd of September and Ryan told listeners the exciting news on the radio this morning, “We have a very, very small audience for the first time in… What was it? Forty-nine shows we did straight without an audience?” he said.
“We’re going to have about… Everything, everything is being done to the letter of the law in terms of guidelines and what we can and cannot do. So, I think we have about… We normally would have 200 people there; I think we’re going to have an audience of 28.
“Now, that to me is a whole lot better than an audience of nothing. So, I’ll take 28 because as a show-off that loves attention, that’ll do me fine! I’ll be able to bounce out. The alternative is like playing squash with a flat ball… This is much better.
“It’s a start. And we always said that we’ll only return with an audience when everyone else can have an audience so if you can have a little audience the way you have in theatres whatever, we’ll do it that way. And then, when it goes bigger and bigger, we’ll go bigger and bigger,” he continued.
Ryan also teased that this weeks guests are “terrific” which has gotten fans of the show very excited to settle in with their wine / tea / takeaway this Friday night.
Ryan recently told us about how much not having an audience has impacted him while doing the show, “The audience for me, is what the Big Yellow Taxi is to Joni Mitchell. I didn’t realise what I had, til it was gone. I missed them so much and I can’t wait for them to come back because they are part and parcel of the fabric of the program”.
Continuing he added, “And for all those shows that I did, 49 shows in a row, talking to no audience at all, it was very very peculiar place to be, very challenging and very hard”.
We are glad to see that there will be an audience again, even if it’s a small one!
Fingers crossed we can get back to a full audience once it’s safe.