Graham Norton

I don't think I've ever attended a literary event in a theatre before, and certainly not in a venue the size of the Theatre Royal. Such is the drawing power of Graham Norton, however, the place was packed out with people keen to hear what he had to say about his fourth novel, Forever Home. This sort of thing usually takes place in a village hall or lecture theatre or marquee, and tends to feature an introspective author being coaxed into talking about their latest novel by a frequently ill-prepared interviewer, after which endless self-regarding questions from folk in the audience, keen to display their erudition, bore all but the questioners to distraction. How refreshing, then, to attend such a well organised event and be so thoroughly entertained.
 
Norton is a charismatic, engaging fellow, but I was still bracing myself for the interminable read through of the text that seems to be demanded of authors. How smart to sneak it in right at the beginning and on the big screen. Box ticked before even got going. Interviewer India Knight had obviously done her homework, as she was well acquainted with all Norton's material, not just the new one. Granted, her questions were overlong - the urge to shout "he's a clever man, he gets it, let him speak" was at times nigh on irresistible. There was also frequent, uncritical gushing - "explain again why you're so good" - but she did at least know what she was talking about, allowing for an exploration into some thought provoking areas. The masterstroke, however, was getting the audience to tap their questions into their phones, thereby avoiding the dreary microphone pass around and interminable waffle. In short, this was an event that benefited hugely from the thought put into it. 
 
That said, it's hard imagine how an evening spent in Graham Norton's company could be anything less than entertaining. Resplendent in his pink, corduroy suit – “something I thought a writer would wear”, he insisted – Norton was as charming and witty as you would expect. He seems genuinely surprised that his novels have done so well – not so much in sales as in critical acclaim. Try as India Knight might, she couldn’t work in the narrative that Norton was aware of the quality of his writing. “Let’s put false modesty aside,” she went as far as saying, but I got the sense that his self-deprecation was entirely sincere. She emphasised the skill with which he got under the skin of his female characters. He doubled down, insisting they were simply the women he knew as a young man (not least his mother). He went further, saying he wrote about small town Ireland only because he didn’t feel able to write about anything else. He wrote about crime because David Nicholls advised him to pick a genre with scaffolding. He seemed to view the fact that books of real quality came out the other end as a happy accident.
 
He also does his upmost to remove his public persona from proceedings. “The last thing you want is Graham Norton looming over your shoulder while reading,” he explained. He said that while he has carried the urge to write all his adult life, his epiphany came as late as his fiftieth birthday, when he realised the best way to satisfy his long term ambition to write a novel was simply to get on with it and write a novel. Rather than aspire to be as good as novelists he admired – Kate Atkinson got a name check here - he merely aspired to not be as bad as some other “celebrity” authors. He refrained from naming names – “You know who they are”– just one of several questions he deftly avoided when quizzed on sensitive matters. He may have given license to ask any question that came to mind, but he never actually promised to answer them. 
 
Nonetheless, it was when the role of inquisitor was handed over the audience that the evening took off. With Knight marshalling what had been asked into bite sized chunks we got to hear more – much more – from the man himself.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, most questions resolved not around the book, but around his chat and radio show and he gamely had a stab at most of them. Tom Hanks was his most professional guest, Tom Cruise his most admired, but Sister Wendy was his favourite – meeting her described as the closest he has ever had to a religious experience. He was star struck at Liza Minnelli’s wedding, perplexed by Michael Jackson’s eating habits, and if asked, would have differently prepared potatoes for all three courses of his last meal.
 
Well served by unusually witty questions, the chit chat was largely harmless fun, but great fun all the same. It’s no surprise that Norton is a great raconteur, but perhaps it is news that there appears to be a ferocious intelligence underlying what he says, and (in his closing remarks to a student fretting in her final year) an empathy and wisdom so very different what might be expected from the frothy inconsequence of a chat show host.