Graham Norton, famed for his BBC chat show The Graham Norton Show, gave some chat show secrets whilst he was promoting his latest novel Frankie at a literature festival
Graham Norton has admitted he sometimes “zones out” when celebrities tell boring stories on his chat show – knowing they’ll never make the final edit.
The BBC star, 62, has now been hosting a BBC chat show since 2007. Before that he fronted one on Channel 4 although in a new interview he joked the calibre of guest was less impressive in the early days. He joked some guests from the early days “he wouldn’t run over in a car” now.
Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature festival Graham said it has taken years to establish the relaxed format with big name guests so they now want to return and be on the sofa.
He explained: “I mean, the idea is, I’ve asked them all, I’m the host, they’re the guest. The plan is they have a nice time, and they might want to come back. And I think it’s taken a years and years and years to establish that. I think particularly American stars, they’re very nervous. I mean, I’m not a journalist, but I think they still see me as part of the British press. And the British press is a much tougher on people than the American press.”
He then went on to admit he sometimes “zones out” when guests tell longer stories. He said: “Because the show is edited, you know, there’s always that kind of bit of insurance. So, you know, I don’t interact. If somebody’s droning on for a very long time with very boring story, I don’t have to stop them. I can just zone out knowing no one will see this on television. And the chances of them watching the show are quite slim, so they’ll never know that their moving story wasn’t in.
“I remember John Voigt [US Actor] once I told a very long story about being a young actor in New York. He managed to move himself to tears. We cut it out.”
Graham, who has won five BAFTA awards for his series, also said one weakness in other chat show hosts, at least initially, was to think the programme must be all about them.
He said: “I think some people go into it thinking the show is going to be about them. And I get why you would think that, because my name is over the door. I run on at the beginning and everyone is going, yay. So it is kind of the big I am, but only for a few minutes.
“The minute you get those guests out, then it’s your job to make them, you know, be funnier, be more interesting, be more famous, even when they aren’t, they usually are.
“But that is your job, and you become sort of like a little comedy butler at the side. And I think some people are a bit deflated to discover that, oh, actually, these people need to talk.
“Because, you know, if I say something funny on the show, you know, it has been a bad show because they’ve left it in. The ideal show is when the funny comes from the sofa.”
Graham was appearing in Cheltenham to promote his new novel Frankie. He is the author of five hugely successful novels, all of which have been bestsellers in the UK and Ireland and have won or been shortlisted for the An Post Irish Book Awards. Graham’s debut novel Holding was made into a high-profile TV drama in 2022, and Home Stretch and Forever Home have both been optioned for major TV series.
On writing and what it fulfils in him that interviewing doesn’t, he said: “I think it’s the only thing I do that I feel like I own completely.
“In everything else in my life it involves meetings. There’s always a meeting about everything, and there’s always a slight sense at the end of that meeting that that’ll do, or, you know, it’ll be fine, whereas with this(writing books), I make all the decisions, and whether it succeeds or fails, it’s mine, and it’s the only thing I really feel complete ownership. Which I know is odd because I have a show called The Graham Norton Show, but I really do feel like I share that show with a band of people.”
* Graham Norton’s latest novel Frankie is out now.
Source: Mirror
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