With the finale looming this week, we are a nation in the throes of peak Traitors speculation, which means anyone involved in the series, whether in front or behind the camera, is fair game. And let’s face it, us viewers have a lot of questions: who will emerge victorious to share the €50,000 prize? Who will be treacherously stabbed in the back? And where can we source every item of presenter Siobhán McSweeney’s stunning wardrobe?
Comedian, writer, television host and dad-of-two Kevin McGahern, presenter of Uncloaked, the televised Traitors podcast on RTÉ 1, has had to fend off a lot of questions at the school gate while picking up his kids. He has all the hottest Traitors gossip but is sworn to secrecy. “I’m being harassed but I just tell people I can’t say anything or I’d be sued,” he laughs. “Actually it’s an easy secret to keep, people don’t really want to know, it’d be like unwrapping your Christmas presents too early.”
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On a Zoom call from his home in Dublin, the walls festooned with framed movie posters, he’s delighted to be involved in the show. Set in Slane Castle in Co Meath, the series has been a profile boost for the former host of Republic of Telly. “I’m really enjoying it, it’s great to work on a show that people are actually watching, a lot of my career has been working really hard on shows that nobody watches,” he says.
Unless you’ve been hiding under a cloak, you’ll know The Traitors Ireland is an Irish version of a beloved international franchise featuring a group of contestants completing missions to build a prize pot. Some of the contestants are traitors, secretly scheming to sabotage the group. The rest are faithfuls who are tasked with identifying and eliminating the traitors before being picked off themselves. It’s like a real-life version of the kid’s game Mafia, and it’s proving a hit for RTÉ at a time when the beleaguered broadcaster badly needed a feelgood ratings-grabber.
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The Traitors, produced by Kite Entertainment, is that old-school thing, appointment TV. “When you think of your happiest childhood memories a lot of them are around watching TV with the whole family watching stuff like Gladiators or the Late Late,” McGahern says. With streamers and on demand TV, “we’re missing out on those kinds of shared experiences. So it’s lovely to be even a small part of a show where the whole family sits down and discusses it and cheers and shouts at the telly”.
It’s no surprise that he thinks Traitors Ireland is “miles better” than the UK version, even if he had his doubts at first. “I thought Irish people might be too reserved, or too self conscious, that we wouldn’t open ourselves up but if anything the contestants have been more emotional, and they’ve made genuine friendships.”
While being cut-throat and deceptive is the name of the game, he says viewers might be surprised to learn how close all the contestants are. “I know they are all part of a WhatsApp group and they all get on despite what some members of the public might think.” He feels some of the commentary about the eliminated contests has been “quite cruel”. When he had Eamon, the Garda, on the show some viewers felt he didn’t go hard enough on him for how he treated fellow traitor, the 68-year-old former prison officer Paudie.
“I thought I gave Eamon a few digs … people were criticising Eamon for how he spoke about Paudie and that justified their hatred of Eamon, but I know for a fact they get on with each other.”
McGahern’s show is like the post-match analysis after a big game. Uncloaked comes on after each episode airs, with well-known people from Alison Spittle to Rhasidat Adeleke sitting down with him to dissect each episode. Fans of McGahern’s acerbic, cynical Republic of Telly demeanour will note he is a little more avuncular on this show. He says his presenting style for Uncloaked has evolved with a little help from his wife, Siobhán Cassidy, who has a background in theatre.
“I had been trying to come up with jokes and one liners but I had a chat with my wife after the first episode and Siobhán was like, ‘this is not a panel show, this is a fan show. You have to be in service to the fans. This is not about you, Kevin.’ It was excellent advice,” he says. “I went in the next day with a completely different approach.”
What have been some standout moments for him in The Traitors? “Watching Paudie dodge accusations like Keanu Reeves dodging bullets in The Matrix blew my mind. I was such a fan of his, I have such a grá for that type of Irish man. And one thing that totally separates the Irish show from every other iteration is our ability to tell the truth in a sarcastic way and somehow get away with a lie. Like Paudie was accused of being a traitor in the very first episode by Michelle, and he just went, ‘Oh yeah, that’s right, I am yeah, all day.’ And he said it in such a sarcastic way that everyone’s like, ‘sounds like he’s legit’. Like, nobody else can do that in any country in the world. Nobody can just blatantly tell you the truth and you assume they’re lying to you.”
McGahern, who turns 40 next year, grew up on a farm in Gowna, Co Cavan and studied animation in college but was drawn more to live comedy. “You could be working on a cartoon for six months, stand-up was a quicker way to get a laugh,” he says. He worked as a barman in Dublin’s stand-up mecca the International Bar. He’d go to gigs and sit with comedians afterwards, asking endless questions but not revealing his true motivation. Eventually his friend and fellow comedian/animator Robbie Bonham, who died earlier this year aged 54, told McGahern “just do it”. So he did.
After gigging for a while he rose to prominence as the host of Republic of Telly on RTÉ2, bringing a quirky edge to the satirical current affairs comedy show. He has also acted in television programmes such as Hardy Bucks, Smother and Finding Joy, as much at ease with drama as with comedy, and fronted documentaries such as Kevin McGahern’s America. On Uncloaked, he is showing off his chatshow chops for the first time. Watching him at his witty, astute, conversational best, it’s not hard to envisage him as a future Late Late Show presenter.
[ The Traitors craic, wit and wolfhounds has restored my pride in IrelandOpens in new window ]
On the one hand McGahern, a fan of American chatshow hosts, admits he’d love a gig like that but when I ask if he’s ambitious, he says no. “I hugely admire ambitious people,” he says, joking that his wife will give out to him for admitting he lacks ambition. In fairness, his laid-back approach to career progression seems to be working so far. The day after the Traitors finale he’ll be back on our screens again in the second series of Cheap European Houses. With a second series of The Traitors Ireland and Uncloaked pretty much guaranteed, it looks like the talented McGahern will be busy for a good while yet. “I say I’m not ambitious, but then again, when work dries up, I am a mess, I go into panic mode. But as long as I’ve a job next week, I’m fairly happy.”
The final episodes of The Traitors Ireland and Uncloaked are on RTÉ 1 on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday
