{"id":204615,"date":"2025-10-11T07:07:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T07:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/204615\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T07:07:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T07:07:07","slug":"the-graham-norton-show-is-50-minutes-of-chatshow-alchemy-delivered-with-aplomb-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/204615\/","title":{"rendered":"The Graham Norton Show is 50 minutes of chatshow alchemy delivered with aplomb \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Television success is often about novelty, the great Terry Wogan<\/a> once said, contrasting it with the familiarity and repetition that underpin the most cherished radio.<\/p>\n

When I heard the late broadcaster say this, in an interview in 2012, it stayed with me. Television was, at the time, still a perennial zeitgeist chaser, with executives constantly seeking to \u201crefresh\u201d their line-ups, pension off presenters and let off as many fireworks as possible.<\/p>\n

But since an announcement from the BBC<\/a> about the future of The Graham Norton Show popped up this week, I\u2019ve been wondering if that first part of Wogan\u2019s wisdom is still true, and whether anyone should want it to be. Is it television that has changed or is it me?<\/p>\n

There are exceptions \u2013 The Traitors is the obvious example \u2013 but most of the properly valuable entertainment properties on linear television channels in 2025 are shows that, were they to find human form, would be old enough to vote.<\/p>\n

When I saw that BBC update about a new three-year contract for Norton<\/a>\u2019s show, starting in 2026, I felt momentary panic, first about the already averted possibility that this deal might not have been sealed, then about what might happen in 2029.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Graham Norton agrees three-series deal with BBC for flagship chat showOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re getting from this that I love The Graham Norton Show, you would be correct. I love everything about it: Norton\u2019s deadpan jokes at the start, the choreography of the arrivals on to the sofa, the palate-cleansing recap of previous encounters, the efficiency with which the promotion of wares begins, his guests\u2019 ease in his company and the tension-diffusing impression that everyone understands the assignment.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also fond of the starry-eyed couch cameos from musical guests, the red-chair stories from members of the public, the even better apologies about there being \u201cno time for the red chair\u201d and the bit where he announces who\u2019s on next week, the star-wattage of the names increasing as he goes along.<\/p>\n

Some people want chatshows to be televised therapy sessions, hate laughter and\/or think pre-recording and editing programmes is somehow cheating. I\u2019m not one of them. I think Norton\u2019s capacity to warmly get the best out of guarded A-listers without jettisoning his innate drollness is a special skill that isn\u2019t talked about enough.<\/p>\n

\"GrahamGraham Norton: His chatshow offers a tried-and-tested package that has proven resilient to changes in celebrity culture. Photograph: Matt Crossick\/PA <\/p>\n

But my attachment to The Graham Norton Show is not just about the 50 minutes of chatshow alchemy delivered with such aplomb by So Television<\/a>, the ITV Studios-backed production company he founded with Graham Stuart, his executive producer.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also about not wanting the Norton era to end, because that would mark the closing of a brilliant chapter of television history and because the next thing that comes along \u2013 if anything comparable ever does \u2013 will inevitably be useless and I will be 100 per cent against it in advance.<\/p>\n

In recent years it has felt like a possibility that Norton might opt to walk away. That\u2019s because since 2021 he has chosen to cut back on the number of episodes he makes each year \u2013 the show\u2019s April-June editions are no more \u2013 and made other adjustments to his workload.<\/p>\n

So the statement assuring that The Graham Norton Show is with us for at least another three years, that both the BBC and the presenter are \u201cthrilled\u201d and that, in Stuart\u2019s words, Norton and So Television \u201chave never felt like stopping\u201d is a relief.<\/p>\n

Time being a funny thing that only gets funnier the more of it you experience, the show seems like both a TV upstart and an enduring fixture.<\/p>\n

Technically, if it was a person it would only just be old enough to vote. The Graham Norton Show started on the BBC in 2007, although at first it bounced around the schedules, initially on BBC Two. The show only began its Friday-night reign on BBC One in 2010, after the incumbent slot holder, Jonathan Ross, left the BBC.<\/p>\n

But what Stuart dubbed \u201cthe Norton talkshow journey\u201d really dates back to 1998, when So Graham Norton began on Channel 4<\/a>. It was pure novelty then, propelled by hyper audience-participation segments, occasionally risqu\u00e9 wheezes and untapped reserves of gay icons for guests. A gay Irish man was triumphing in his domain on screen, and this felt new.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Graham Norton: \u2018Angry people want you to lose rights. I hope young gay people are up for the fight\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

That show was born in the internet age, but our host became part of television tradition, eventually sidling into the mainstream and reshaping it in his image.<\/p>\n

His BBC show doesn\u2019t strive for controlled chaos like its Channel 4 predecessor. It offers a gimmick-free, tried-and-tested package that has proven resilient to changes in celebrity culture. That\u2019s its superpower.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a lesson for television powers that be more generally. Leave the experimentation to YouTube. Let the TikTokers get on with their thing \u2013 on TikTok. <\/p>\n

Sit back, embrace maturity and just be glad for the consistency of Norton presiding over his show with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and the confidence of someone who knows what he\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Television success is often about novelty, the great Terry Wogan once said, contrasting it with the familiarity and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[13698,49,48,25932,75,100322,100321,100324,100323,348],"class_list":{"0":"post-204615","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-bbc","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-channel-4","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-graham-norton","14":"tag-laura-slattery","15":"tag-so-television","16":"tag-terry-wogan","17":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}