Ireland AM's Countdown game leaves presenters in stitches

Live television - where anything and everything can happen.

This sentiment was laid bare this morning on Virgin Media’s Ireland AM when a Countdown segment on the programme cracked up presenters.

Presenters Laura Woods and Alan Hughes were playing a version of Countdown in studio, joined remotely by Karen Koster and Tommy Bowe.

Channel 4’s legendary Countdown afternoon show sees contestants pick nine random vowels or consonants, and then have 30 seconds to form the longest word out of the letters that have been drawn.

Sitting on the couch in studio, Laura called out whether she wanted a vowel or a consonant - with Alan at a whiteboard, surrounded by white placards, picking out the random letters.

The first letter drawn this morning was ‘C’, followed by a ‘U’.

The presenters feared danger right away.

“We could get some unusual words here, couldn’t we, for breakfast television,” laughed Alan.

Asked to draw another consonant, he drew an ‘M’.

“I forgot that these things can happen,” added Alan.

Drawing the last letter, he found it to be ‘T’.

The studio then broke down in laughter, with Karen Koster asking via live link: “Is this a joke?”.