'Jonathan Ross knew someone had to get his job. I'm glad our show was rewarded': How Graham Norton became TV's number one talk show host



He's a safe pair of hands, careful with money and was recently voted the man most people would like to invite to a dinner party... At 48, is the impish presenter showing signs of growing up?

'Now I'm so very old I think I've changed. Toned down. It happens. When I moved to the BBC (in 2005) it was like going from primary school to the "big school", and you do change, grow up,' said Graham Norton

In the upper room of L’Etoile, a famously discreet luvvie hang-out in London’s Fitzrovia, Graham Norton is describing the most sobering moment of his career, which reveals a lot about his attitude to fame, celebrity and wealth. It happened a few years ago in New York.



‘I was just about to leave, so I was rushing around doing last-minute things and I was out and about buying little bits and pieces. I was standing on the pavement about to cross a road and I saw this guy I instantly recognised.

‘Back in the Sixties he was a huge comedian; he was on all the big, big shows. A really successful comic. And there he was standing in the traffic with a walker selling copies of The New York Times.



'I have to admit I did stand and stare. I was thinking, “Jesus, this is what can happen.” I found out later the guy is now 97 and this is his life: standing out in traffic selling papers. If that doesn’t make you think, then nothing will.’

Serious stuff – yet seconds later, he adds with a wry smile, ‘Of course, the real problem is that he’s lived to 97.’



However, even when pressed, Norton doesn’t want to give the name of the comedian, worrying that he may read it or be humiliated.



Graham's worth at least £15 million. 'I'm comfortably off,' he said

‘Oh no! I mean, come on. You don’t want to make things any worse than they already are. It’s just not fair.’

In that moment he clearly took on board a lesson for himself. Norton values the future over fame, longevity over celebrity and wisdom over wealth. That image of the faded comic might have been why he accepted a pay cut of £500,000 from the BBC last year – and may take another one as the cost-cutting at the BBC continues.

‘I hope not, but if I have to then I have to. That’s the reality of the situation. Once you’ve paid your dues and you’re providing that rare thing – a show that does well – you feel there ought to be some sort of financial reward. But equally the BBC is a special case right now.

‘I am very defensive about the BBC, but it’s almost impossible for me to talk about it because I’m employed by them. So if I was to say the cuts are terrible but they’re doing the best they can, then people would just say, “Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?” The best you can do is just carry on doing your best.’

Norton sees himself not as a star, but as a man who ‘works on the telly’ (as well as the radio – in a Saturday-morning Radio 2 slot and on Radio 4’s Just A Minute – and the stage). He has been famous for more than a decade, yet manages to keep a relatively low profile.



‘I don’t get chased by paps or stared at in restaurants,’ he says. ‘I’m not that interesting to the papers.’

Despite these protestations, he’s hugely popular. He’s a favourite with the Duchess of Cambridge, Elton John and Kate Winslet (a guest on the first episode of the current series of The Graham Norton Show), and he was recently voted the man most people would like to invite to a dinner party.



His brand of family-friendly camp Irish charm has made him the go-to host for everything from the Baftas to the Eurovision Song Contest to the chat-show slot he took over from Jonathan Ross. And then there are the shows with Andrew Lloyd Webber searching for musical stars.

But there’s no way this would have happened had Norton, 48, remained the man he was when he landed his first chat show, Channel 4’s So Graham Norton – or, indeed, when he first got noticed at the Edinburgh Festival back in 1992 with his comedy drag act as a tea-towel-clad Mother Teresa. He has gone from alternative to establishment.

Norton once stated that he wasn’t the man he was on television in private.



‘That was early on,’ he says. ‘I was starting to feel quite different from the character I was on the show. You get older, you mature, you suddenly don’t want to wear the loud clothes, the bright suits.



'But now I’m so very old I think I’ve changed. Toned down. It happens. When I moved to the BBC (in 2005) it was like going from primary school to the “big school”, and you do change, grow up. I think I’m now very much who I am on television – and comfortably so.’

Graham's been single for five years - although he adds, confusingly, 'At the moment, I'm not'

His gradual reinvention has been a very shrewd career move. Where once guests like Elton John were encouraged to participate in a frenzy of innuendo-filled jokes, Norton now banters respectfully with Lloyd Webber (a good friend – ‘We occasionally have lunch, but he gets very upset I don’t drink red wine. All real connoisseurs drink red. I’m a terrible disappointment’) and cleverly steers celebrities just close enough to the line of controversy to create must-see TV, but rarely offends.

‘I’m actually a terrible interviewer. If there’s a big story I don’t want to try to crack it. I don’t want any of my guests or the audience to feel uncomfortable. All the guests sit together, and the point of the show is just chatting – a chat show.



'I wouldn’t want Cheryl Cole to sit there crying about Ashley, and I definitely wouldn’t want to be interviewing David Cameron. To me it’s about having a bit of fun, having a group of celebrities all having a laugh.’

Norton himself pushed to have all his guests on the sofa at once.

‘You get an interaction, a very different sort of chatty feel, slightly more relaxed.’

Later I attend a recording of his show, at which Norton manages to get the audience on his side even before filming starts. Not content to leave the first 20 minutes to his warm-up man, he goes out into the audience to express his ‘delight and terror’ at the prospect of welcoming his ensemble of guests – on this occasion, Johnny Depp, Ricky Gervais, Ed Byrne and Carey Mulligan. Proving the merit of his formula, the interplay among the group makes for fascinating viewing.

‘How does it feel to be generally acknowledged as the world’s best-looking man?’ Norton asks Depp. The actor winces.



‘Nice of you to say so, Graham,’ interrupts Gervais, bringing howls from the audience and laughter from Depp.



After the show, Norton stands outside smoking with Depp, Gervais and Byrne. Depp is bent double with laughter as Norton holds forth. It’s the sort of rapport which will guarantee a return to his sofa.

Norton doesn’t find it hard to be likeable; in fact, he’s turned it into something of an art form. When Jonathan Ross was ousted from the BBC two years ago following the Sachsgate debacle, Norton made the awkward phone call to his rival presenter to let him know he was replacing him, and stayed on good terms with him – and managed to toe the Corporation line while personally supporting Ross. Quite a balancing act.

‘I think I felt – as did a hell of a lot of others – “there but for the grace of God go I”. When it came to it we then actually talked about me doing his show. It was a case of someone having to get the job, and he knew that. I’m glad our show was rewarded by getting his slot, but for Jonathan personally I felt extremely bad.

‘What happened with him does make you realise how easily it can all blow up. You do have to be careful, you do have to think of yourself as being representative of something bigger than yourself.

'I felt very sad for him (Jonathan Ross). I'm a fan of his. He's a genuinely brilliant television presenter'

'I felt very sad for him. I’m a fan of his. He’s a genuinely brilliant television presenter, and I’m so glad he’s back, because it would have been awful if that had been the last we’d ever seen of him. Television is a better place with him in it – I very definitely think that.’

Norton also has a knack for creating a sense of intimacy; he’s genuinely funny and surprisingly unguarded. When I ask if he regretted describing, in 2006, the drug ecstasy as ‘just fantastic’, he says he was severely reprimanded by the BBC.



‘They quite rightly pointed out I was a massive idiot.’

Off screen he flies very much below the radar. He lives in east London with his two dogs, goes to the gym three times a week (‘I have to, otherwise I get fat’) and spends his summers in Ireland.



After two long-term relationships, he’s been single for five years – although he adds, confusingly, ‘At the moment, I’m not.’



Does he want to get married? He shrugs.



‘Maybe at some point, but not now. Things are good as they are.’

As a teenager growing up in Ireland in the Sixties, coming to terms with his sexuality wasn’t easy.



Things came to a head a year into his time at Cork University, when he locked himself in his room, crying and refusing to talk. He then dropped out, boarded a plane to San Francisco and spent a year living in a hippie commune, going on gay marches and embracing his sexuality.

‘People think I had a big psychotic breakdown,’ he says. ‘It did happen, but I don’t want to insult people who’ve been through real depression, real breakdowns.



'What I went through was what I actually hope most kids go through. You really wish you belonged to one gang, but you don’t. You can’t. And then you have to go and find your gang, your tribe, and work out who you are and where you belong.

‘The reality is that, yes, it starts off with a great deal of discomfort and unhappiness, but actually that’s ultimately a good thing, because it’s what propels you. It’s very difficult to explain this to someone of 17 or 18 – that the miserable thing you’re going through right now will ultimately make the revelation of your life so much better, because you’re forced early on to confront who you are and what you are and then work that out.’

Norton says that in recent years he has found that when something bad happens to him he tends to exaggerate it out of all proportion.



‘That’s when you realise how little you have to complain about. When you start telling everyone you have a cold and taking it really seriously, and then you look up and realise that actually it’s not a problem at all. It’s just that your life is generally so easy you’ve turned something minor into this huge issue.’

With his 97-year-old comic in mind, he has reeled in his penchant for consumerism. I tell him I heard he once spent £35,000 on a Dolce & Gabbana jacket.

‘No,’ he says. ‘I bought a shirt and a pair of trousers in there. I saw this perfect jacket and the assistant looked at me and said, “That’s very expensive, sir.”



'Obviously that got me, so I asked to see it. He then told me the price, and as the thought of buying it was crossing one part of my brain, the thought that there were parts of the country where you could buy a house for that money was running through another part.

‘In America recently, I went to a Ralph Lauren store. This guy spent so long talking to me about every item I felt under pressure to buy something. I spotted a small, black leather bag and thought, “That’ll do. I need a travel bag.” Until the guy said it was $50,000. As I was reeling from the price, he told me someone had actually bought one. I mean, I’m not crazy, and to me there’s something immoral about spending money like that.

‘I’m very conscious I’m coming across as a total tightwad. I’d like to say in my defence that I do also occasionally think, “Sod it. I’m going to blow some cash.” But I’d rather take ten friends out to some amazing restaurant, buy fantastic wine and pay the bill.’

His main extravagances are travel and his summer home in Ireland.

‘It’s odd how after desperately wanting to get away for this huge part of my life, I now feel it’s the place where I’m actually most content, most relaxed. I never imagined myself returning home.’

He’s worth at least £15 million.

‘I’m comfortably off, but one of the most disappointing stories I read about myself was that I’d made it into the Rich List. I was in there at some crazy figure like £40 million.’



He pulls a face. ‘I used to love reading that list, I used to believe every word, and then when I saw myself in it I realised none of it was accurate. I’ve never read it since.’

As he approaches 50, his long-term plan is simple.



‘What would be great would be to make the decision to stop doing this when I’m ready, as opposed to being told to stop. And I really don’t want to be working when I’m old. Definitely not standing in traffic and selling papers anyway.’

