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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Entertainment
Sandra Mallon

TV viewers flock to RTE's Tommy Tiernan Show after being left in stitches over guest's stories

Almost 20,000 more people tuned in to watch Tommy Tiernan’s Saturday night chat show after the comedian suffered a ratings blow earlier this month.

The Navan native saw an average of 391,000 people switch to watch his RTE One chat show, an increase of 19,000 people compared to last Saturday night.

A spokesman for RTE said: “Another strong performance from The Tommy Tiernan Show and an increase on the previous week's ratings.

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“The Tommy Tiernan Show on Saturday, 25th February had an average audience of 391,000 (Live Plus VOSDAL) on RTÉ One (inc RTÉ One +1) and a 35 %share. To date the series has had 463,000 streams on RTÉ Player.”

It comes after Tommy was suffering a week on week drop in viewers with a massive 62,000 people tuning out of the show earlier this month.

The actor went from seeing 398,000 tuning in at the start of this month to 336,000 on February 11.

On Saturday night, Tommy chatted to Dr Martin Worthington who stunned viewers with his “eccentricity” speaking to host Tommy about his academic work in Middle Eastern studies.

During the interview, Dr Worthington, a Middle Eastern Studies Academic, wowed viewers with his in-depth knowledge of the ancient world, discussing things like the language, history and culture of the ancient middle east.

However, Tommy himself was taken aback by Dr Worthington’s “enthusiasm” for the subject, asking him how the people who book guests on the show came across him.

And Snooker player Ken Doherty delighted fans with his stories growing up playing the sport.

The 53-year-old, who won the World Championship in 1997, told Tommy about the moment he knew he had a future in snooker.

He said: "When I used to go into Jason's - and this is a true story - they used to give me a biscuit tin to stand on. You know the old Jacob's Biscuit tins.

"I'd stand on it, play the shot, kick around and play the other shot. I began to beat some of the older boys that were my brother's age - they were four and eight years older than me.

"They used to hide the biscuit tin on me. They said, 'this little b**tard, he is not beating us today'."

He added: "It was sort of then that I knew... it almost became bragging rights or a stature thing. I just wanted to get better and better and better.

"Everyday I'd get off the bus past my mother's house, straight into Jason's school bag under the table. I'd be cleaning out the ashtray and cleaning the floor just for the free game on the table.

"[I'd be there] until my mother sent my sister around to say the dinner was on the table."

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