Graham Norton Interview

By Nick Royle.

Friday nights on Channel 4 is a slot that has seen the worst excesses of yob programming in British Broadcasting. First we had the tortuous tongue-tied ad libbing of Terry Christian and Amanda de Cadenet on the Word.Then came a plethora of excrement artists and pornography introduced by the strangled "English" of Antoine de Caunes and Jean Paul Gautier on ' Eurotrash'. Finally we were faced Sara Cox's 'Wanker of the Week' on the Girlie Show.

But Friday nights during the summer months on Channel 4, witnessed a quiet revolution, catapulting Irish comedian Graham mainstream limelight. The new show entitled 'So Graham Norton' - a mix of gentle chat and audience-based party games &shyp; has seen the 28 year old Bandon man achieve fame in television land having honed his technique for years on the London comedy circuit.

The show included Norton into the a live link-up with an Internet sex site, when he asked the semi-clad hostess to 'pop on a cardigan', as well as guest cameos by television cult heroes such as Wish You Were Here's Judith Chalmers, and former Bond girl Honor Blackman.

Norton passed the acid test for all aspiring chat show hosts when singer and actress Grace Jones attacked him. Jones, of course, achieved fame in England by attacking the late Russell Hardy on his chat show, during Jones' latest outburst the young Corkonian was lucky to escape with a sore neck. "I didn't really mind, as I knew it was all in play. She is mad as a mad thing, but in a good way. I was pleased with that show.'

Norton attributes his success amongst British viewers to his camp personality.
"It's curious, but it's traditional in British comedy. Audiences warm to weak men; men who are willing to make fools of themselves, men who are willing to be vulnerable." Despite the tabloids recent interest in Michael Barrymore's confession of homosexuality, he believes that British audiences are very liberal. 'They don't really bother about who you're having sex with. For them, it is more to do with your persona." he says. He is unsure whether Irish television executives and audiences would have taken to his flamboyant and idiosyncratic style of humour in the way viewers have in Britain. But he is quick to point out that it was not Ireland's conservatism that made him locate in England.

He spent his formative years in San Francisco, in a hippie commune called Star Dance. "I joined it because it was cheap. I was an economic hippie. I lived for a year on lentils and tofu. All my comedy comes from that time. In the commune, there was a 40-year-old woman called Erica, a grandmother who was starting to go to university. I thought that forty years of age was too old to be starting a career. She told me 'Just do what you want to do'. That gave me the confidence to decide
to leave Ireland for good.I think that my hippie ethos got me where I am today", he says. "It was pure chance that I ended up in England. I came over to go to drama school, at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, at a time when there was no equivalent in Ireland. I happened to find work here in England. I don't know if I would have flourished in Ireland, if I had stayed".

Norton is aware that Irish-born broadcasters such as Terry Woman have been criticised in the Irish media for their assimilation into the British life, and the consequent erosion of their own national identity.

"Somebody told me of an Irish girl, who had complained that I'd said to Linford Christie that 'we'd' been excited by his winning the gold medal at the Barcelona Olympics. Bless her for being annoyed. But, I think that if you are sitting in the interviewers chair, you assume the viewer's mantle. I presented a show on the Eurovision and I did re-write that because I realised that I couldn't say 'we' in that context. But with Linford, I was speaking less about nationality, and more about community, and the place where I live. If it was something more serious, if it was an anti-Irish programme, then I might object, but, otherwise I feel life is too short to worry about things like that. I don't particularly wish to make a political statement".

Despite having become something of a regular fixture and assuming the chairmanship of Channel Five's "Bring me the Head of Light Entertainment", Graham Norton is best known for his scene-stealing portrayal of the Riverdancing youth worker Father Noel Furlong in all three series of Father Ted.
"Though I'm proud of the Channel 4 show, I have to say that Father Ted remains the best thing that I've ever been in.It was a complete treat. Pauline McLynn, Ardal O'Hanlon and Dermot Morgan couldn't have been more welcoming'.

The death of Father Ted star Dermot Morgan had a profound effect on Norton.
"Dermot had reached such a pinnacle of success with the show that I felt for him, in his absence, for being thwarted in his ambitions to go on to do other projects', he said. 'Although I only knew him as a work colleague, his death was bizarrely shocking. It was so sudden. There were no health scares, but then suddenly he was dead. The fact that it was the end of the series was sad in itself, but to end it in
that way was just horrible. What I found travelling around the country is that Father Ted fans still need to talk about it, because they loved the show so much.I had a really sweet letter from a 13 year old boy who cried all day when Dermot died".

Norton is happy with then way his career is progressing, and is upbeat about his future prospects now the Channel Four series has ended. "I was working before this happened. The comedy circuit will still be there. I've just been to the Edinburgh Festival, to host the finals of the '"So you Think you are Funny" competition. As to the immediate future, I will also be hosting another series for Channel Five of " So
Bring me the Head of Light Entertainment." Then, I'm going on my holidays, and I'm looking at another thing for Channel Four, but I can't really say anything more about that.'" He refuses to take his career too seriously. "I can't summon up the enthusiasm to defend the shows that I do", he says. "It's television, it can't be that important. It will settle down, and soon I will be looking for work like everyone else. That's fair enough, as long as you know that is going to happen, then it doesn't really matter."

Graham Norton Interview

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