HEARING that Patrick Kielty's new BBC comedy show, Delete Delete Delete, tackles the secret internet life of celebrities, you can't help wondering if it's all about porn and dodgy politics.
But no, as the presenter and comedian explains in his small dressing room in the Beeb's Blackstaff House in Belfast after recording the fifth of six programmes, that's not the theme.
"We barely touch on that; it's a randomly stupid, fun show. Everybody has two lives now and you can often find out most about someone by what sites they visit," the Co Down man explains.
The idea's been a long time coming, as Kielty says: "Some years ago, I had a similar idea for a show called Phone Hacker which was 'Why hack someone's phone when you can politely ask them for it?'
"I got Alistair Campbell, who has the best-connected phone, to try it out at the Cheltenham Literary Festival. At the time they wouldn't touch it."
But good ideas resurface and Ash Attala, TV producer of The Office, approached Kielty with this new format. Interestingly, it isn't a quiz show and there are no winners.
"We didn't want that panel-show format as we wanted to give the participants time to go off at a tangent," Kielty says.
Kielty is suave and physically funny. He has done quite a bit of this TV presenting, a natural career progression as presumably there comes a time when stand-ups want to sit down. But he still likes the hit of live performance.
"It's made me the performer I am," he says.
Between 300 and 400 souls filed into the studio for the recording. Was the packed house because it was a wet Monday, our host enquired. Maybe. But the comic energy soon kicked in.
Dublin comic Jason Byrne and glamorous broadcaster Suzi Perry were our supposedly dynamic duo; other guests in the series include Adrian Chiles and Christine Lampard (nee Bleakley).
They warmed up well under Kielty's coaxing and started sharing their internet lives. Some of the most innocent humour in Studio A came when we discovered what our celebs had been asking Dr Google. Suzi Perry, who lives in France with a Dutch husband and several hectares of land, wanted horticultural advice. Specifically, were limes "like lemons before they grow up"? How we laughed.
And as she was tempted to try self-sufficiency, she also needed to know if you had to have a noisy cockerel around for the hens to lay. Well, no. More laughter, well orchestrated by the studio crew.
The one risque internet bit – although there were a lot of enjoyable near-the-knuckle comic riffs outside the celebs' net habits – came from Jason Byrne. The middle-aged comic, who does a nice line in tangential humour like musing on Lenny Henry's brother who may (or may not) live in Dublin, wanted to know about sex after 40.
Of course he did. We didn't discover the answer, but moved on to the fact he's been visiting the Jason Byrne website. Oddly, that isn't his but belongs to an American magician of the same name.
Surprise, surprise, the team had managed to Skype this other Byrne for us. What was embarrassing for the comedian was that this guy had emailed him years ago and he'd never bothered to respond. Discovering that Byrne 2 did acts with (feathered) birds in Las Vegas, Byrne 1 decided he'd quite like to chum up. And maybe stay with him when the next big Vegas boxing fixture is on.
After a couple of hours or so under the hot studio lights, Kielty wrapped it up. So what mark would he give this particular episode? "I think they've all been at least a seven, and this was an eight." Edited down, it will undoubtedly be a good, clever show.
A lot of people labour under the misapprehension that the Kielty household, now numbering Mrs K, that is Cat Deeley, Patrick and a new baby son (whose name hasn't yet been made public), is based in the States.
They aren't and maintain their home in Dundrum. As Kielty explains, the idea got about because all the photos you see of them in the press were taken in Beverly Hills.
"There aren't many paparazzi in Dundrum." he says, deadpan.
Fame comes with an up and downside. Although Kielty has said he'd never accept a knighthood at any point in the future, he hangs out with the great and the good. And has had drinks with Prince Harry and Prince William. So does he have a penchant for the British upper classes?
"Interesting question. When you're Irish in the UK, nobody can place you, which is freeing. Here there's tribal loyalty but no class system. We've no middle class in Ireland, just rich people and poor people."
Comedy wasn't his immediate career choice – he studied psychology at Queen's. But he was always known for his humour and at St Patrick's Grammar, Downpatrick, his sports teacher Pat O'Hare more or less forced him onstage.
"The Christmas concert was coming up and I was quite a good mimic, doing voices down the back of the bus. Pat O'Hare said 'If you don't do your impressions, you'll never be in goal again, I'll drop you.'" So he did his turn.
As a fresher, Kielty reluctantly took to the stage again, winning his housemates a keg of beer.
"I did my Barry McGuigan but then I did him at 16 with a bad wig in a show hosted by Caron Keating and Jackie Hamilton."
Kielty pushes the envelope quite a bit and still relishes stand-up, saying Chris Rock at the Oscars was a benchmark. Watching his 'Muslims are the new Micks' riff from Live from the Apollo, you're suddenly reminded of the late, great Dave Allen.
"He was such a hero when I was young. When the old comedians were doing bad 'My mother in law...' jokes, he sat there, talked about life and was the start of the new-generation comedy. Incidentally, I did that Apollo sequence in support of the Muslim community. We can say to them 'The next 30 years are going to be s**t' because we know what we're talking about."
He adds that at the end, young British Muslims came up and thanked him.
So, Patrick, northern Irish humour – what's it all about?
"Our attitude to humour is you can say anything. Billy Connolly once said, 'You can laugh at anything, as long as you smile at people.'"
:: Delete Delete Delete starts on Wednesday March 30 on BBC One Northern Ireland at 10.45pm.
