Graham Norton: ‘A guest wanted nine dressing rooms’

CHAT-SHOW host Graham Norton reveals why he forgives bad guests on his show, his ability to fake being relentlessly cheerful and the craziest pre-show requirement he’s ever had.

Graham Norton: “In a way I forgive the bad guests because no-one’s occupation is professional chat-show guest.” (Pic: Sophie Spring)

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CHAT-SHOW host Graham Norton reveals why he forgives bad guests on his show, his ability to fake being relentlessly cheerful and the craziest pre-show requirement he’s ever had.

Ask around and the question everyone has for Graham Norton is: who has been the worst-ever guest on your show? You must have come up with a diplomatic way of dispensing with that question.

People are always interested in either the worst or the best. That’s all. In a way I forgive the bad guests because no-one’s occupation is professional chat-show guest.

You’re in my show because you’re successful at something else. But it can be like a dinner party where somebody gets the conch shell and you’re thinking, “Oh my god, here we go.”

Graham Norton with a few of his famous guests on his show.

A-listers do love a rider, laying out all their pre-show requirements. What’s the craziest one you’ve ever had?

We had someone once who required nine dressing rooms. But we managed it, and then in the afternoon someone from their team came running into the production office saying, “It’s a 911 situation. We need another dressing room.”

We managed it but said, “Just out of interest, what’s it for?” Completely straight-faced: “They want to charge their phone.”

That took our breath away. How somebody’s life gets to that point, where they cannot be in the same room as their phone, is beyond me. We live like animals, sharing rooms with charging phones.

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As someone who, at age 55, has at least four day jobs, what possessed you to become a novelist, too?

It was something I’d always wanted to do, and I got to 50 and I thought, either I shut up about this or I do it. It’s not like anyone is stopping you — writing is accessible to anyone with a pencil and a bit of paper.

Norton arriving at Chiltern Firehouse in London to celebrate Kylie Minogue's 50th birthday. (Pic: Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty Images)

You’re on to your second novel — but these books aren’t the showbiz roman à clefs one might expect. Where on earth did they come from?

Usually a person’s first novel is heavily autobiographical or a coming-of-age story, but at 50, having written a memoir those stories were all gone. So I tried to find a world that people didn’t associate with me, and Ireland was the obvious thing.

Maybe I’m biased because I’m Irish, but it’s a place so rich with stories, secrecy, drama and heartache. Whenever I go for a walk with my mother, every house we pass she’s got a story about it, who died in there, who had a baby in there, whose husband ran away — and I find that endlessly fascinating.

Graham Norton features in this Sunday’s Stellar.

Most people who grew up in rainy, cold 1970s Ireland didn’t go on to become internationally successful talk-show hosts. How did you manage to get from there to where you are now?

We had one television channel. That came on at four and finished at about 11 and I was so drawn to it as a window on the world, an escape route.

I remember watching a talk show and fantasising about being a guest, what stories I would tell. I never saw myself as the other guy; I always thought I’d be the person on the couch.

But it was only when I got a bit older I realised the people on the couch come and go. The guy in the chair comes back week after week. I’ll be that guy.

You’ve been described as relentlessly cheerful, but you can’t always be in that wonderfully chatty mood. Do you ever have to fake it?

I’m at work. If your job is frothing milk, you’ve got to froth the milk. My job is to be a cheery chat-show host so I better be that or I’m going to get fired.

If you’re going to leave the house and go to work, fake it. No-one is interested if you burnt your toast.

A Keeper by Graham Norton (Hachette Australia, $32.99) is out on Tuesday.

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Originally published as Graham Norton: ‘A guest wanted nine dressing rooms’