Candid and deliciously camp, for more than three decades, Graham Norton has been a favourite on our TV screens.
Since bursting onto the scene with his chat show back in 1998, the Irish funnyman, 61, has had a showbiz who’s who on his couch, from Hollywood legends to chart-topping pop icons.
Yet despite being a longtime ratings winner in Aotearoa and even blending his own Kiwi wines, the TV personality hasn’t ever performed on our shores… until now, that is!
In March and April next year, the cheeky comic will entertain audiences in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland. Viewers can expect tales from his decades-long career, sharing celebrity encounters and behind-the-scenes gossip.
But talking to Woman’s Day, he insists, “This is not my burning bridges tour! I do want guests to come on the show again. But you know, there’s talk about some of the people who’ve maybe drunk a little more than they should have. And there will be also some backstabbing about people who are now dead because that’s how cowardly I am. Yes, I’ll dish on dead celebrities!”
In An Evening With Graham Norton, the nine-time Bafta Award winner will take ticket holders on a journey through his 40-year-long career.
“I haven’t done a live show like this since I was in my thirties. I’m now in my sixties,” he says.
Amid the many amazing celebrities he’s interviewed in the impressive 31 season-long run of The Graham Norton Show, the star has also had some duds. How does he deal with them?
“Well, I’m in such a fortunate position because I’m never alone with them,” he explains. “I always have a couch. So even if you have a boring guest, what’s good is while they’re being boring, it’s not just me and the audience thinking, ‘Jesus, shut up!’ It’s other people on the couch too. So if they pause for breath, I’ll throw a little question to one of the more interesting people.”
Thankfully, when it comes to entertaining guests, Kiwis and Aussies usually deliver.
“They never get too grand for it,” says Graham. “Even someone like Nicole Kidman, who has been famous for so long, will still make an effort. She won’t just sit there aloof and go, ‘I’m Nicole Kidman. What more do you want?’ She could, but she tries. She’s still interested and wants to hear the stories from other guests.”
While Graham has built an entire career trading in the fame game, he’s managed to keep his personal life private, which he believes is partly due to finding fame later.
“I was older when I got any kind of success or notoriety,” he shares. “I was in my mid-thirties. When I started with TV, people invited me to showbiz parties. I was excited to go, but I only needed to go to about two before I realised that these parties are all the same and they’re actually not that fun.
“And if you’re not going to those parties, then you’re not being photographed. Then, you’re not in the papers, so people kind of forget about you… There’s a lot of things you can do to keep your life low-key and out the limelight.”
Though Graham is happy to avoid the spotlight, his marriage to Scottish filmmaker Jonathan McLeod in 2022 made a splash in the world’s press – not least because he’d previously declared that he never thought he’d tie the knot.
“I suppose that I didn’t have anyone to marry,” he says now. “You really need someone else to do it! So when I say I felt ‘surprised’ I did it, it was just because by the time I was turning 50, it didn’t seem that was going to happen for me.
“A lot of my friends had met their long-term partners and I hadn’t. I was very happy being single. But then I did find someone and we’d been together for six years, and it finally happened!”
While Graham says his defining characteristic now is that he’s “old”, his energy and workload rival that of a 20-something.
He laughs, “I remember when I turned 50, thinking, ‘It’s all downhill from here,’ but then I started writing novels, so now if I lived to being 80, I will have been writing novels for 30 years.
“When you’re young, you think you have to hurry up and do everything. But as you age, it’s nice to reflect, to realise that you have more time than you thought you did.”
To buy your tickets to An Evening With Graham Norton, click here.
