Shaken and stirred to be back

Graham Norton is sitting comfortably in his swivel chair as the 29th series of his chat show kicks off.

And it opens with a bang as he meets the stars of the latest James Bond film, No Time To Die.

Here, we turn the tables on the award-winning host and quiz him on his return...

Are you excited about your latest series?

Lately, I feel grateful because no one’s taking anything for granted any more. I still love doing the show and I’m delighted the BBC has not yet said, “Taxi for Norton!”

Do the stars seem eager to get back to live studio appearances?

I think a lot of these people miss audiences. As much as they might have said, ‘God, promoting a film, ugh, I’ve got to do this,’ once it’s taken away and you don’t have the luxury of complaining about it, you realise, ‘Oh, actually, it’s a privilege being able to do these things’. I hope they’ve missed doing the show.

What did you enjoy about shows in the past year?

When Tom Cruise came to do the show in person in April, it felt personal. No PR was going, ‘Come on, Tom, you’ve got to do this’. It was him saying, ‘I’m in Britain, this show is on, I want to be a part of this’. So it felt weird that here’s Tom Cruise doing us a personal favour. He had nothing to promote, as such. It was just him being engaged on quite an intimate level because there’s no audience, no fanfare – he just walked out onto the studio floor and said ‘Hi’ to the cameramen. It was kind of humbling that there he was, just walking among us, like a normal human being.

The last series also saw stars showing up in ballgowns...

I loved it. It’s like the stylists were finding all these gowns but had nothing to do with them. So because there was going to be lights and a camera, they just went, ‘Right, we’ve got nowhere else for you to wear this amazing frock, so you’re wearing it on The

Graham Norton Show’.