The last time Graham Norton was in Australia, it was 1987 and he was on his summer break from drama school in London.
“I remember I stayed in Bundoora, which is a lovely suburb of Melbourne,” Graham tells TV WEEK via Zoom. “Honestly, it was amazing. When I would watch Neighbours in the UK, I just thought it was a stupid soap opera, and then I got to Bundoora, and Neighbours seemed like a searing documentary: ‘Oh wow, people do have spice racks! People do have collections of dried flowers in their house!’”
When Graham returns to Australia next year, things will be very different. Instead of being an unknown drama student, he’ll be touring his live show, where he’ll be talking about, among other things, The Graham Norton Show’s star-studded 32 seasons. By then, Australians will also know him as the host of the new Australian version of Wheel Of Fortune, which is shot in the UK with Aussie expats.
Graham is the latest in a long line of hosts. So what does he bring to the classic game show?
“I’ve no idea,” he laughs. “I know the rules, which I feel is important. Hopefully, I’m friendly. Hopefully, I make people less nervous rather than more nervous.”
Growing up in Ireland, Graham enjoyed watching game shows and would often dream of being on one himself – but not as the host.
“I wanted to be the person winning the money, or I wanted to be the guest on the chat show,” he remembers. “It never crossed my mind that I’d be the other guy. But of course, as you get older, you realise it’s much better to be the other guy because you’re on every week – and also, hopefully you’ll be there for longer.
“When I started doing chat shows there were guests that we were desperate to get who now we wouldn’t cross the road to say hello to. But I’m still on the show! So in the end, I’m very happy that I’ve ended up the host.”
The Graham Norton Show has been airing in the UK since 2007, and in that time, most of Hollywood’s big names have made at least one appearance on it.
“We thought we’d never get George Clooney, then we had George Clooney,” Graham says. “We thought we’d never get Julia Roberts, now we’ve had Julia Roberts. Of the big Hollywood ones, the outstanding whale is Brad Pitt. We’ve never had Brad Pitt. So if Brad’s reading this…”
Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie and Toni Collette have all sat on Graham’s couch, and he says Australians, generally, are “very good guests”.
“They tend not to be in an ego bubble,” he explains. “They tend to be quite interested in the other people on the couch, which makes them already a better guest. So they’re all good.”
Moments from Graham’s show often end up going viral, the most recent one being Saoirse Ronan’s comment about women’s safety. Graham says he “absolutely” didn’t know it would blow up the way it did.
“I knew it was a good moment,” he remembers. “She got a round of applause. Everyone was delighted. But then it was like, suddenly, Saoirse Ronan was the Germaine Greer [of today]!”
As for the secret to the show’s success, Graham has no idea.
“Honestly, if I thought about that, I think my head would explode! I suppose the reason I still enjoy it – which kind of amazes me, that I’ve been doing something for so long and still enjoy it – is that no matter how much preparation you put in, no matter how much work you put in, on the night, you still don’t know what you’re going to get.”
One of the advantages of his show is that he has multiple people on the couch, so that if one person isn’t very chatty, he can talk to someone else.
“If it was just me and Robert De Niro, that would be quite a long evening,” he admits. “I would end up sweating bullets, I imagine. But because I have him on with other people, you actually realise, ‘Oh, he’s not having a horrible time, he just doesn’t like talking.’ You see him react to things, he sits there with a benign smile on his face, you’re just never going to get a story out of him.
“I think when I was younger and less experienced, that kind of stuff would freak me out. But now I’m more relaxed.”
Graham, who married filmmaker Jonathan McLeod in 2022, will be arriving in Australia to begin his tour in early March – just after Sydney’s world-famous Mardi Gras parade, but just in time to see Kylie Minogue in concert.
“We’re hoping to go and see Kylie the night we arrive,” he says. “She’s got the last night of her tour in Sydney then, so hopefully, if I’m not totally killed with jetlag, I’ll go and see that. So we just miss Mardi Gras, which is probably just for the best, because you don’t want to start the whole thing exhausted with a hangover!”
Set to celebrate his 62nd birthday in Australia, Graham says he has as much energy as he’s ever had – and he’s not going to be the one to call time on his chat show.
“I think either the BBC, audiences or a doctor will tell me when it’s time to stop,” he says. “There’s a lot of people who are going to pull the plug on this thing, so I might as well keep going while I can!”
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