Ronan Keating

Is pop music the new coalmining? Well, if you’ve been following the progress of Hear’Say you could certainly be forgiven for thinking so. 4 am starts, five-hour choreography sessions, and then, to top it all off, a soul-scalding tour-of-duty, grinning and giggling, through a boundless constellation of cable channels and mid-day entertainment shows. Appealing to the tweenies these days really doesn’t appear to be much fun.

Is it any wonder then, that the main protagonists are finding it so difficult to last the pace?

This, so the theory goes, is where Ronan comes in – our knight in a big white coat – to ride triumphant over the three-minute wreckage. Because Ronan kept his head, while all around were giving theirs. Because Ronan had the gumption to listen to Louis, and to stake a claim for the long game. Because Ronan’s going places.

Why then (apart from when he’s flying ten feet above our heads during a surreal version of Blur’s ‘Tender’) does Ronan appear so anxious?

Well, it might be because the new material that occupies the first half of the show – the material that’s supposed to catapult him into the CD racks of mid America – seems not to tickle the fancy of the assembled throng of kids and thirtysomethings. It may be that, when Paul Brady is introduced as his special guest, half the crowd wonder who he is. It may even be because the night only comes to life when he plays his Boyzone hits.

Whatever, there’s no disguising the odd pathos in the closing tune when he asks the audience, once, twice, three times: “Are you coming back?”. They all say yes, of course. But I wouldn’t trust the scamps.