Glenda Gilson opened up about her friendship with Ireland’s Got Mór Talent co-host, James Kavanagh.
The mother-of-one exclusively told Goss.ie that she feels at ease with the 29-year-old, as they have worked together before.
“Myself and James had the craic. It was funny because this year we knew each other even better. We could kind of give each other a look, because you want to give each other a nudge but obviously we’re on-camera so you can’t do that all the time. Myself and James, before each interview, have a code word that we have to throw in,” she told us at the preview screening of the first episode of Ireland’s Got Talent.
“If one of us does it or throws it into a sentence three times, we’ve won. It’s funny, we have all of these stupid things going on. We had a lot of moments where we couldn’t laugh. Like the best laugh you have is when you’re in school or at mass, we had one of those moments…a lot of them.”
When asked if she feels more comfortable on Ireland’s Got Mór Talent as it’s in its second year, Glenda said: “I suppose we do because it’s the second year, you know what you’re doing. I’ve always been at ease with James, I’ve worked with him a few times on other things as well.”
“We’re in a better place. We knew what we were doing more so I suppose and that was with the whole team. So I think this show is even better than last year.”
“I’m just excited for this season’s show. It’s bigger and better. There’s more talent, there’s more non-talent on it as well. Very entertaining, it’s punchier, it’s faster than last year,” she added.
“I suppose everyone knows what last year was like so they’re looking forward to this year, but this one is even better. Like I was watching in there, I absolutely loved it. I have seen bits of it before, I have seen my own show, but I’ll sit down and watch it like everyone else. One thing I love about Ireland’s Got Talent and Mór Talent is that you can sit down with babies to your granny. It’s one for the whole family.”
As for the acts the hosts met backstage, Glenda said that there were some strange performers.
“I met loads of strange acts, so you have to keep acting to see who we have met. Lots of strange, lots of wonderful, lots of talented people and just interesting people as well. People that are bizarre, quite bizarre as well. So it’s just kind of a great mixture in there.”
“It’s funny some people come on and they speak to you and they’re really serious and they say ‘you know I’ve been doing this talent.’ Because we don’t know what they’re doing, we kind of keep away from asking them what they’re doing and try to get it out of them.”
“They might speak to us and ‘I’ve been at this for the last ten years’ and I might say to them ‘okay who is your biggest fan? Who likes your work?’ They’ll say ‘oh my mam and my friends think I’m really great’.”
“Then you ask them who is with them today and they’ll say ‘oh I’ve a group of friends and my family’, there could be twenty-two people with them and you’re like ‘wow, okay these guys have to be really good’ and then they get on-stage it’s like….okay.”
While there are going to be some surprising acts on the show, the presenter said that how they act backstage is the same as how they act towards the judges.
“Usually what you see is what you get on-stage. But listen, I’m only telling you the entertainment. There is so much more in this show, so as I said there is loads of variety.”
Jason Byrne, Denise van Outen and Lucy Kennedy previously opened up to Goss.ie about the variety of acts on this year’s show, but Glenda told us there is a lot more to look forward to.
“There is a lot of that, but also myself and James get to go on-stage and audition again. I don’t know if we’re better than last year but we’re totally different and our names are Jim and Glenn. So there’s an exclusive for you, you have to watch out for that.”
Ireland’s Got Talent is returning to Virgin Media One on Saturday 2nd February at 7:30PM and Ireland’s Got Mór Talent will air straight afterwards at 9PM.
You can check out Glenda’s interview below:
