Graham Norton: ‘I love wearing a mask – no one recognises me’
Graham Norton is popping the cork on a new series of The Graham Norton Show and celebrating big-time as he can finally get faceto-face with the A-listers again. We can’t wait…
Of course, no glad-handing or air-kissing will be allowed in the new socially distanced studio set-up, but Graham Norton is delighted that chatting to celebs via Zoom is over. The presenter, 57, is raring to go after spending the summer at his holiday home in Ireland. He’s got a megabusy Autumn ahead as he returns to the BBC for his chat show, as well as presenting his Saturday show on BBC Radio 2. An annoyingly talented person, he’s also a successful writer and his third novel is out shortly. We booked a Zoom call with Graham recently to ask how he’s fared in lockdown. Frank and funny as always, he told us how he ended up sleeping on the floor, and why he’s not so excited about same-sex couples on Strictly…
How has this year been for you so far, Graham?
The weird thing is that I didn’t miss much. I read a lot. To begin with, like a lot of people, I had a reader’s block, where it was hard to concentrate on anything but that pressure on your chest – you were panicking, wondering where this will end – but that only lasted a few days. I did miss having the cleaner though. I did the bare minimum, so the house did get in a bit of a state.
Are you eager to get back to normal life?
I’m eager to get back to the chat show. But the easing of lockdown is such an odd thing – if somebody could just wave a magic wand and say, ‘It’s OK everybody, off you go, it’s safe’, then I wouldn’t mind. But it’s still sort of lurking and you think, ‘Er, are they just easing lockdown so people can spend money?’ I guess they are. I think that’s why the economy is sort of screwed, because everybody realised that life is fine without spending money.
How was presenting from home, during the pandemic?
It wasn’t very fun, at first. Terry Wogan – who said a lot of wise things – once said, ‘You know you’re a star when you notice the camera follows you’. I’d got very used to that – if I turn while I’m filming the chat show, there’s a camera on me. But at home the shots were pre-set, so I had to turn to the
various cameras and filming took forever, at first. Everyone was so tentative on Zoom, too, but by the end we loosened up.
Are you a mask-wearer, or a mask-shunner?
I started wearing a mask a third of the way through and now it’s lovely, because nobody knows who you are. You put on sunglasses, mask and a hat and you could be anybody. No one stops you for selfies.
Do you worry about your mum, Rhoda’s health with the ongoing Covid crisis?
Yeah, but the good thing is because she’s not very mobile, she’s been sort of self-isolating for three years, so it’s more like the rest of the world caught up! She’s in her late 80s and has diabetes and that’s not a great demographic but, touch wood, she’s OK. I am that awful son who didn’t organise stuff for her during lockdown, because my sister, Paula, lives close by her and did all the organising.
Your new novel, Home Stretch, is out soon – what’s it all about?
This was a story born out of something that wouldn’t make the national press in other countries, but would in Ireland. Every Summer there’s a spate of kids driving with too many people in the car and there’s an accident.
There are these tragedies where numerous people die but the driver often lives. I really couldn’t stop thinking about that. That’s the start of the novel – I swear it’s not as depressing as it sounds!
You lost your dog, Madge the terrier, last Christmas. Now it’s just you and your labradoodle, Bailey. How’s that been?
Yes, it was sad when Madge went, but she’d had a good life. And in the middle of lockdown Bailey’s legs became really bad, so he couldn’t do stairs any more. I mean, he’s 16. I always knew this was going to happen and I had devised a plan. I thought, ‘There’s a bedroom on the ground floor – I’ll sleep in there with Bailey until his legs are better’. But that bedroom became the TV studio when I was presenting the lockdown chat show, so the last half of lockdown I spent sleeping on a mattress on the floor by the front door. Sleeping on the floor in a dirty house – it was like going back to my twenty-something life! Thankfully, he’s better now.
The Graham Norton Show returns to BBC One this Friday at 10.45pm. Home Stretch is published on 1 October (Coronet, £20).
‘Sleeping on the floor in a dirty house – it was like going back to my twenty-something life!’