Before lockdown came I was planning to do “Rainbow Phil’s Paddy’s Day Special” in the Red Stables but of course that all had to be cancelled. Instead I decided to perform what I had prepared, LIVE via my Facebook page – somehow, word must’ve got out because there were over 200 people watching at one point!
I posted later to my Facebook page to say thanks to everyone for tuning in and to ask if I was to continue doing Facebook LIVE, how often would people tune in to watch – The overwhelming response was EVERYDAY RAINBOW PHIL, WE NEED STABILITY, ROUTINE AND FAMILIARITY FOR OUR LITTLE ONES!!!
So that was decided, every morning at 10am I went online and performed songs and read story books live from my kitchen. The concept of “The Weekend” kind of went out of the window during lockdown, so it literally was EVERY single morning!
As I became more familiar with the streaming software I was using (OBS), the daily show slowly evolved to become more like a silly, cheesy kids TV show with silliness for the kids and of the cuff jokes for the parents.
After a while I realised that if I had a green screen I could use OBS to put in any background at all behind me and create all different scenes which I could move through during the show. Once the green screen was in place there was no stopping me, I set about creating my own world out of clip art
Of course I couldn’t keep our kitchen/dining area set up as a mini TV studio permanently, so every morning it was a case of setting up microphones, laptop, lights, stream keys – “The Show” as it became known in our house, literally started taking over!
It also began occurring to me that string certain songs together in such a way as to tell a story, which lead to both “Rainbow Phil’s Pirate Adventure” and “Rainbow Phil’s Dinosaur Adventure” both of which were performed entirely live from my kitchen and technically pushed what it was possible to do in terms of live streaming a kids show!
Swashbuckling adventure aboard a Pirate Ship 
but, OH NO!! They made me walk the plank!
Me having a bit of banter with Jeff Goldblum while taking the helicopter to Dinosaur Island 
Singing “Dino Boogie” before getting chased off by a T-Rex!
While all this was going on, there was a real feeling of community and togetherness, hashtags such as #stayhomesavelives and #inthistogether were trending all over the place and it occurred to me that I had inadvertently created a platform from which I could do some actual good. During this time I started two fund raising campaigns. The first was for Feed The Heroes who were supplying hot meals to front line medical staff and the second one was for the Beaumont Hospital Foundation – everyone was super generous and you can see how much we raised in the pictures below!
I ended up doing Facebook Live shows for ONE HUNDRED consecutive days between March and July 2020 – by the time it came to an end, restrictions were easing and I was about to move house so it seemed like stopping at 100 shows was how it was meant to be…
Covid hero?!
So I finished the daily live shows after 100 episodes and moved house… but that’s not quite the end of the story… Because one day in late July, while we were in the middle of renovating our new home, I received a very touching surprise in the post
In case you couldn’t watch the video, I was sent a certificate from the Lord Mayor of Dublin which recognised me (Rainbow Phil) as a Covid Hero for services to my community during the pandemic of 2020 – I was genuinely not expecting anything like that and it was a very touching and emotional moment!
Quite possibly the peak Rainbow Phil Facebook Live Show was the Dinosaur Adventure – if you only watch or rewatch any of my lockdown Facebook Live shows then it’s got to be this one!!