Toy Show The Musical: A cynical, arrogant money-heist by an organization that seems to have forgotten its true purpose

If you’ve ever brought your kids to a panto, or were brought to one by your parents as a child, needless to say there really is nothing quite like the special magic they evoke.

​I have lots of warm, fun memories of taking our three to The Olympia or The Gaiety when they were little. Like when the villain challenged the cowardly daddies in the audience to come on stage and fight him.

I felt an urgent tug on my sleeve and a tiny voice squeaked, “YOU get up and fight him, daddy, YOU get up and fight him!”

Where else but in a panto would you find that kind of miraculous, innocent suspension of disbelief?

There was also the time when Dustin the turkey appeared in the box next to ours, threw his head around the divide and pretended to snatch the girls tits – a wonderful story to share with their friends the next day.

There are also less happy panto memories all related to it Cinderella, a gigantic boredom of a thing written and produced by its star twink and staged in 1997 in the echoing expanse of old Point Depot.

For the kids, the joy of seeing the real Barney the dinosaur on stage was exhausted by what felt like 72 hours of twink twinking.

Covid-19 has been tough for live theater over the past few years so it’s great to see the pantos back in full force. They need – and deserve – the support of the ticket-buying public.

What they don’t need or deserve during these lean times is RTÉ of all people meddling on their territory, trying to grab a slice of the seasonal box office Toy Show The Musical.

The plan doesn’t seem to work. According to a report by Ellen Coyne in the Irish Independent Last Friday, the day before the show opened at Dublin’s 2,000-seat convention center, just one of over 30 performances was sold out. One day’s performances had been canceled, ostensibly to allow more rehearsal time; a more plausible explanation would be poor ticket sales.

And this despite the fact that tickets go on sale in May at prices ranging from 25 to 50 euros and the production is shown endlessly in television, radio and print advertisements. There were also more than a few mentions The Late Late Show, of course.

By the way, Ryan Tubridy is not involved in the musical, although several young people took part the toy fair, Including Adam King.

video of the day

Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if the show turns out not to be the hit that RTÉ was clearly banking on. Whatever you think of the Tubridy era toy fair – and I’ve written enough about why it leaves me so cold that I don’t want to go into it again – it’s a crowd puller, attracting the biggest Irish TV audience of the year. It’s also a cash cow for RTÉ, whose bounty toy fair A whopping €86,125 is the promotional package (one 30 second during the show, another during the repeat, plus three plugs into Tubridy’s radio show). The Irish Time.

Building an entire stage musical around it feels like a cynical, arrogant heist from an organization that seems to have forgotten its true purpose.

RTÉ is our national broadcaster. His job is to create radio and television programs. In case anyone forgets, that’s what the R and T in RTÉ stand for.

It’s not his job to fund musicals — certainly not to the tune of an alleged €2 million, and certainly not when it comes to pleading poverty and seeking an increase in broadcasting fees.

A freedom of information request to RTÉ from the Irish Independent for precise details on how much money is invested Toy Show The Musical was declined.

Can you imagine a national broadcaster like the BBC reacting like that? no But then you probably can’t imagine the BBC funding a musical based on The Graham Norton Show either.