Write move for GrahamNorton Louise
residents of the small Irish village of Duneen.
All of this, Norton readily admits, is a long way from the ‘‘peculiar life’’ he lives now. He had to delve back into his own history – his childhood in County Cork, Ireland – to find ‘‘something I knew would resonate with a wider audience’’.
For a debut novelist, Norton is in a privileged position. ‘‘I got the publishing deal because I am Graham Norton,’’ he says. ‘‘I say that out loud and I know that aspiring writers are hearing me and they just want to kill me. But equally, it’s a difficulty. Reading a book is such a lovely, intimate experience – it’s just you and the characters. And once my name was on the cover, I was very aware that I’d be looming over people’s shoulders.’’
He did everything he could to distance the story from Graham Norton, that camp wag from the telly. The plot has no showbiz and no gay characters. The few moments of humour are wry rather than boisterous.
Most critics so far are impressed, many in spite of themselves. Several conclude their reviews with some variation of: ‘‘This is not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.’’ But it’s no secret that Norton knows how to write. As well as his work as a broadcaster, he has an advice column for the Telegraph newspaper and has written two memoirs. That’s how Holding came about; when negotiating with his publisher about his last non-fiction book, The Life and Loves of a He Devil, Norton insisted a novel be part of the deal.
The question is: why bother? Norton is, by anyone’s standards, quite busy. The Graham Norton Show runs weekly. In the UK, he is on BBC Radio 2 every Saturday from 10am to 1pm. There’s the Telegraph column and sundry other projects, including a Nortonbranded wine range, a stint in the West End musical La Cage aux Folles and a regular gig as the BBC’s Eurovision commentator.
He says he has always wanted to write a novel, but so have thousands of others who will never get around to it. How did he find the time? ‘‘I think when you get into your ‘50s you think, ‘well, it’s time to bite the bullet’,’’ he says. ‘‘People say, ‘Oh, I’d love to play the piano’. Well, there’s a way of doing that … so shut up about it or get some piano lessons.’’
It took him about a year, seizing moments to write whenever he could. He finished the book the day before his 53rd birthday. With that, says Norton, the final item on his bucket list was ticked.
The characters of Holding are not seize-the-day types. For them, dreams and ambitions have slipped from a glimmering future into a dusty past. ‘‘My radio show and column probably play into the novel more than the TV show,’’ he says, ‘‘because you’re encountering more different sorts of people and situations.’’
But two decades as a television interviewer have surely given him some insight into what makes people tick. There must be a reason that stars like Williams seem more relaxed on his show than they seem anywhere else.
‘‘I’m certainly interested in people’s stories,’’ he says. ‘‘It’s so cliched and so hackneyed to say, but everyone walking along the street has been through something … Crap happens to everyone.
‘‘I think the nicest people – and the best [celebrity] guests – are the people who still have a genuine interest in other people … In real life, if someone isn’t interested in anyone else, then their world is shut down. Whereas in celebrity world, you can exist because people will just sit and listen to you talk about yourself.’’ Fairfax The Graham Norton Show 8.30pm, Fridays, TV3.
Warner
Revolution Radio is Green Day’s 12th album and first in four years since they stretched themselves thinly with the underwhelming album trilogy ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! and ¡Tre´! in 2012.
This time around, it’s a case of quality over quantity.
Revolution Radio has all the hallmarks of a Green Day album – packed with radio-friendly punk rock music and punchy lyrics, tapping into the psyche of a troubled Western World.
The 12-track listen delivers some heavy-themes, but dressed in a way that listeners might not even notice.
Take the album’s first, undeniably catchy single, Bang Bang, an energetic rager in which frontman Billie Joe Armstrong actually sings from the perspective of a mass shooter. ’’Bang, bang, give me fame, shoot me up to entertain, I ama semiautomatic lonely boy.’’
It’s followed up with angst-ridden tracks Say Goodbye (‘‘Violence on the rise’’) and Troubled Times, which asks, ‘‘What good is love and peace on earth? When it’s exclusive?’’
Ordinary World closes the album with the charm and delicacy of their 1997 Time of Your Life, but it seems unlikely any of the tracks will leave such a legacy.
The heyday of Green Day has probably passed, but Revolution Radio might just invigorate the music world with some vibrant, oldfashioned anarchy. - Hannah McKee