1. If you want to get Toy Show studio audience tickets in your lifetime, it’s already too late. Someone should have registered you at least five years before you were born for it even to begin to be possible
2. In a kind of foretaste of the real spirit of Christmas, small children are allowed to stay up late to watch it for the first time, in the company of overly excited, “merry” adults
3. There will be good grown up musical acts on. Ones you’ve heard of, like Ed Sheeran. The rest of the year, many of the guests wear Stetsons and are therefore barely distinguishable from each other
4. At least one “adorable” tiny toy demonstrator is ruthlessly using it as an audition and will grow up to have their own show on RTE. They’d eat you as soon as look at you
5. Until the name guest, none of the singing will be in tune. You’re supposed to find it delightful
6. The “one for everyone in the audience” gifts will be decent. No knitting patterns or vacuum packed luncheon meats tonight - unless they also transform into something else
7. The presenter will be shunned live on air by at least one munchkin and have to shrug off this shunning with a smile, even though he’s dying inside. If only he could shrug off his horrible jumper as fast
8. You don’t have to worry about bedtime: overly excited kids and adults alike will be asleep as soon as the books and crafts section kicks in
9. They show a reel of all the kids who auditioned to perform Consider Yourself on the show but didn’t make it. It’s meant to be kind, but we all know they secretly refer to it as the “dregs reel”
10. If you’re not excited about watching it, you can be stripped of your citizenship. You must at the very least say that you are
See The Late Late Toy Show LIVE! Saturday 28 November 2015, Show 20.00. Hosted by Gráinne Maguire, Tara Flynn and Colum McDonnell at London Irish Centre, 50 – 52 Camden Square, London NW1 9XB £18 + booking fee. For tickets click here
