Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our favorite talk show, houst Is Beck. Has been a
year since he last trundled into the BBC studios in
London when we were there for the coronation. Of course,
as late as novel is called Frankie. It's out this week.
Graham Norton is back with us. Good morning and good
morning to you, sir. How are you? I'm extremely well
and you are at the end of summer. You look
like you're in a cottage today. Every time we interview,
(00:20):
I always go where are you? And sometimes it's in
New York, and sometimes it's in Ireland, and sometimes it's
in London. I've not seen the background.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
This. This will be excited to know.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
It's the back bedroom of my house in Ireland. We're
just finishing up the summer here and actually, weirdly, it's
a gorgeous stay here.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
The sun has been shining all day. I've just had
a swim.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
It's beautiful, fantastic. Have you done the Village Quiz or
attended the Literary Festival.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I've attended the Literary Festival. I took a year off.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I didn't take I was given a year off from
the quiz. I think they're trying to rebuild demand, so
they rested it for a year. So I was very
happy to take a year off.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I was very I was reading something about you. Somebody
asked what's it like to be famous? And I thought
your answer was brilliant, and that was it's like being
where you are now. So in other words, in small
town Ireland, everybody knows everybody.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
It is.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
It's like because somebody asked me in when I was
at the little town here, Bantry, and I was giving
a talk and somebody asked me, what's the like being famous?
Such d of sweet, innocent question, and there should be
an answer to it, but of course.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
What is the answer to what it's like being famous?
Speaker 3 (01:35):
And then it suddenly struck me it's like Bantry, where
you know, you try to avoid people in the supermarket
and everyone knows your business. So it's just like that.
I think that's kind of why I like it back
here in West Cork, because yes, everyone knows me, but
I know a lot of them, so it has a
(01:56):
kind of a logic to it. Whereas if you walking
down Oxford Street in London and people know who you are,
that's just nuts, that's just weird.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Is is it a nice place to be where you
can be yourself and relax.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Absolutely, and it is kind of a I think part
of that, Like my job is slightly more exotic because
I'm Graham off the television, But walking around, I'll know
that that's Margaret who takes the money at the butcher's.
That's the guy who you know works in the garage,
you know, so I have a kind of a reference
to them as well. And I've been coming here now
(02:31):
for I don't know, like twelve thirteen years or something,
so you know, to me and if they say hello,
it doesn't seem weird, it's because they know me.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Now, that's a nice way to be. When does your
television show come? I've been trying to track this. You
normally relaunch in September? Am I correct in saying that.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
You are correct? And it is still correct. We'll be
back at the end of September?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I think.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Here we're on air on the twenty seven, twenty eighth
or something like that, so I don't know when it
will be.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
You guys, So where are you at literally as you
talked to us in this early September morning, do you
know when you're recording who's on the show. Have you
got a question line sorted out? Have you started your research?
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Mike, no, no, no, there are guest booked.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
But I'm not going to say because that just jinxes it.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
You know, it's actually is a really starry lineup for
our first show back at the very star lineup. But
I don't want to jinx it by saying who's on,
because if I do that, they will all you know,
you know how to treat this is they will all
cancel the minute I say who they are.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
And we always.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Record on a Thursday night, so I know that's happening,
and I won't really get into what we're asking them
until the Wednesday in the office all day Wednesday and
that's when we kind of go through the questions and things.
But I'm very much I don't know what you're like.
I'm very much what's the thing. I have to focus on,
what's the next thing on? So right now I'm just
(04:04):
about launching to kind of the world of book promo.
I'm doing a tour at Little Biddy Tour here in Ireland,
and then I'm doing a big book tour in the
UK starting next Sunday. So that's where my head's at
and then then at the end of that, I'll go, oh, yeah,
there's a chat show. What do I need to know
about that? I just I don't worry about the next thing.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
I just worry about the thing fantastic. When you interview people,
I mean, I don't know who these people are, but
you will have interviewed them before. Do you look to
get something different out of it? Or do you look
to reacquite yourself in that familial way that brings the
magic that has made you so successful.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
And a bit of both.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
You know, if someone was good before, you'd like them
to be good again. If they weren't very good before,
you'd like them to be better. Actually, this first showback,
I think there's at least one, I think two big
stars who we've never had before.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
And one of them I saw her during.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
The summer doing a Q and A after a film,
and I'd never really seen her being interviewed before. And
I would have been before I saw this Q and A.
I would have been like, oh, is that going to
be okay? She was so funny and good, So hopefully
that's what we'll get on Thursday night at the end
of September.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
All right, Speaking of guests. Are you familiar with the
name Luke Comes? Yes, right, Yeah, so I'm a massive
country music fan. I did him the other week and
I'd never done him before, and we were working on
getting them on for two years and so I've been
around long enough now to it doesn't bother me, and
you know, we just chat and all that. But I
got I was on edge. I thought, I hope this
(05:46):
goes well as it turns out it did.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Do you brilliant?
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Well, I mean you don't key, You'll never say it,
but do you do you go through that same thing?
Speaker 3 (05:58):
No, absolutely, you know, particularly and particularly the ones you've
worked for. You know, if somebody just falls into your lap,
you kind of go, oh so, but you know, somebody
like Julia Roberts. We had tried to get Julia Roberts
for you know, decades really, you know, and then finally
it's happening and we realized it was only I think
(06:18):
after we booked it, we realized she'd never done a
UK talk show before. Wow. Ever, not even at the
beginning of her career, she never did one. And and
so you think, oh god, you know, is there a
reason she's.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Never done a UK talk show?
Speaker 3 (06:35):
And of course I'm an idiot, because when she sat
down on the couch, you realize why she's such a
youthe star. I mean, just charisma to burn. The audience
were just entranced by her. They just loved everything about her.
But she was great with the audience. You know, you
kind of thought, oh, you know, yes, you're a movie star.
(06:56):
But she hadn't lost whatever it was that it made her.
She'd be still able to totally engage with an audience, you know.
And in little breaks in the filming, she didn't talk
to me, she didn't talk to Tom Hanks or share.
She was talking to the audience, and you know, cracking
jokes with them. And I was so impressed by her. Yeah,
and and and that's you know that thing about never
(07:18):
meet your heroes. It is lovely when you meet your
heroes and they turned out to be everything you'd hoped for.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Exactly, right, we must talk about the book. And this
is what you do so incredibly well. You start by
talking about general metters and then you slip the main
reason for the interview in And this is what I'm
doing right now, Graham. As it turns out, so I
don't think anyone noticed so so so Frankie. Now here's
here's the thing. It's it's over many years, decades in fact,
(07:46):
how much research goes in. How do you do the
research and how do you know it's accurate?
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Well, I mean, how do you know it's accurate? You
have to believe what you read research. You have to
go okay, there are some facts in the world. There
are some facts, there are things we can rely on.
So that's how I know it's accurate.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
The research.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
I sort of knew that I was going to have
to do some and i'd never really I mean, I've
done a bit of googling when I was writing before,
but never proper research, and so I wasn't sure if
i'd enjoy it, would it be a bit like homework?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
And turns out I did enjoy it.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
I mean, I think part of the key was that
I was writing about worlds that I was interested in.
It's kind of you know, there's a bit of theater,
there's a bit of the art world in the sixties
and seventies, and I was interested in those. But to
do kind of the deep dive reading, I found it
(08:44):
all fascinating. I think that the thing you've got to
do then is not put everything you've learned in your book.
You know, sometimes you read a book and you're, yeah,
we get it, you need some research back off. So
I try to use it as lightly as as I could.
And also, you know, you don't want to turn into
(09:05):
a dinner party war with kind of.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Did you know that? So I'm trying not to be
that guy.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
And the good thing is, of course, as fast as
I learned all of this research, I forgot it, So
I hopefully I won't be the dinner party bar fantastic.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Somebody in a piece of the other day was suggesting
that you quit radio. Since we've last talked. You quit radio,
and you've got this busy schedule and you're wandering around
doing your tour in the book and stuff that we're
seeing now the evolution of Graham Norton the novelist. Is
there something in that?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
I mean, I suppose the fewer things you do, the
more focused you become. So you know, I was doing
the radio.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
I did the radio for thirteen years, so to have
my weekends back, I'm just seeing it as the evolution
of Graham Norton not doing anything at the weekend. But
I maybe there's a bit of I'm taking the books
more seriously. I think I'm getting better. This is novel five,
(10:09):
and I think it's the one I enjoyed writing the most,
and it seems to be landing in a different way
the kind of the early readers.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
And you know, those.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
People are those people who get early copies of the
books and seem more enthused about this book than they
have the others. So yeah, we'll see, we'll see what happens.
This is almost a weird time where before the book
comes out because with lots of the other things I do,
I can pretend I don't care. I can go, you know, oh,
(10:42):
stupid show. We're doing another one next week. It didn't
matter it was bad, or you know, radio show. I
don't care. I'll be back on tomorrow. It doesn't matter.
With a book, you can't pretend you don't care, even
if it's the word and you know, for three hundred
pages it took you a long time to type that word.
You just can't pretend that you didn't put some work in.
(11:03):
So I did put work in, which means that I
guess I feel differently about books than I do about
anything else I do.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
You know, you have to take it personally.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Are you more enthused about this book? Are you sitting
there in the middle of it thinking, actually, this is
turning out quite well.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Yes, But then I think I always think that then,
and then it's only, you know, it's only when the
book arrives in the world people go, yeah, you were wrong.
So we'll see how this one lands. But like I say,
so far, it feels kind of different. It feels like
it's people are reacting in a different way.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Fantastic, well, isn't it? As always? It's lovely to catch
up and talk with you, and good luck with the book?
And is the wine still going well? By the way,
You're still consuming quality of it.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
And I'm certainly a consumer, and I'm told it's flying
off the shelves. We met up with the boys in
New York and did our tasting there, which was very glamorous.
Have grapes will travel, So yeah, it's still going strong.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I think, fantastic. We'll enjoy the rest of you some
of good luck with the book, good luck with the
television show. We'll look forward to seeing all the stars.
And who knows, we're booking for our next interview. What
October a month?
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, cheers. Mikee thank you very much. I'm easy to
get them.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Luke Coombs, Yes, you are all right, so you soon
appreciate it. Graham Norton.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
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