On RTE, the pre-occupation with chat shows continues unabated.

Because no sooner has the young fogey Ryan Tubridy moved up into the big boy’s seat on the Late Late than the station is looking for the next bright young thing to liven up Saturday nights.

Obviously that search proved fruitless and so they turned to Brendan O’Connor, who may be bright but he’s not that young – still, stick him into a good three-piece suit and, lo and behold, you have the Saturday Night Show.

In fairness to big Bren, he’s no shrinking violet and he did a good job on The Apprentice – but this is one hell of a jump and he had every sign of a man who was missing his safety harness.

His producers did him no favours for his opening show, putting on mimic Oliver Callan who is unquestionably funny but who would be eminently capable of interviewing himself.

The end result was O’Connor sitting like a lemming waiting for the chance to get a word in edgeways – and then when he did get a chance to open his mouth once Peaches Geldof came on, it was only to put both feet in it.

The only time he relaxed was when his old sparring partners Linda Martin and Twink came on and suddenly the sparky, sarky hack was back in the room – but otherwise he seemed overawed by the whole affair.

It only took until week two to work his way down to Jedward and it wasn’t a patch on Jonathan Ross’s exchange with the yardbrush haircuts – but it’s early days and Beefy isn’t short on confidence. Given the standard so far, however – Jedward, Michael Barrymore, Twink – he just might be short on good guests.