Speaker 1: Hi, Brian, Hi Katie So, Dame Judy Dench, Sir Elton
Speaker 1: John and a talk show host walk into a studio
Speaker 1: and sit down over drinks. It sounds like a setup
Speaker 1: to a joke, doesn't it. But it's actually a typical
Speaker 1: episode of The Graham Norton Show, the wildly popular British
Speaker 1: comedy chat show. But if anyone is listening in the UK,
Speaker 1: of course you know that our guest today is Graham
Speaker 1: Norton himself and I am really tickled pink about this.
Speaker 1: Me too, but maybe I'm not pink anyway. Listeners, remember
Speaker 1: how we mentioned the last episode that we had something
Speaker 1: special in store for you, Well here is a big
Speaker 1: surprise everyone. We're coming to you today from London. That's right.
Speaker 1: The pod took us across the pond. All we had
Speaker 1: to do was at an end. The fine folks over
Speaker 1: at the British Broadcasting Corporation invited us to record some
Speaker 1: podcast episodes on their home turf and they didn't have
Speaker 1: to ask us twice. We're very excited to be here. This,
Speaker 1: by the way, won't be our only episode out of
Speaker 1: London in collaboration with the BBC, so be sure to
Speaker 1: stay tuned in the month ahead. Now, listeners, we like
Speaker 1: analytics as much as the next podcast, and so we
Speaker 1: know that most of you are not British. Perhaps you're
Speaker 1: not familiar with Graham Norton or his TV show. Don't worry,
Speaker 1: We're here to help you get acquainted. So the first
Speaker 1: thing you should know is that the format of the
Speaker 1: Graham Norton Show is essentially an a list cocktail party.
Speaker 1: On camera. He invites several celebrities to sit down side
Speaker 1: by side to chat and drink with one another. And
Speaker 1: they're not just there to promote their latest projects. They
Speaker 1: tell stories, they do impressions, even party tricks, and they
Speaker 1: feed on one another's energy. The result is a rollicking
Speaker 1: good time. It's incredibly entertaining. But Graham is not just
Speaker 1: funning games. He is also an acclaim novelist and advice
Speaker 1: columnists for the Telegraph, something of a British icon. I
Speaker 1: just say he's just a plain old British icon and
Speaker 1: frankly a guy who knows how to have a good time.
Speaker 1: We began our conversation by asking him about the whole
Speaker 1: spirit of the show and what it's designed to do.
Speaker 1: Graham Norton, we are so excited a to be in
Speaker 1: London and be to be sitting here with you. Well
Speaker 1: vice eversy. I live in London, but the sitting with
Speaker 1: you is exciting. I'm sure it's equally exciting for him.
Speaker 1: So so I gosh, I have so many questions to
Speaker 1: ask you, Graham, and I know Brian does as well.
Speaker 1: But you've been doing your what do they call it
Speaker 1: a chat show? Over here across the pond? We call
Speaker 1: it a chat show for a long time, but but
Speaker 1: in its current incarnation for about eleven years? Is that right?
Speaker 1: I don't even know, because I count from the beginning.
Speaker 1: I count from when we started the Channel four with
Speaker 1: a show called so Graham Norton and that was twenty
Speaker 1: years ago this year. So thank you and in various forms,
Speaker 1: I've been doing a chat slash talk show for that long, um,
Speaker 1: and I genuinely I still enjoy it. I didn't you know.
Speaker 1: It's sort of extraordinary that you know that you would
Speaker 1: get a job and be doing the twenty years later
Speaker 1: and going, hey, it's a great job. And you do
Speaker 1: it once a week every Friday night. You tape on Thursdays.
Speaker 1: And I read that your goal is to make sure
Speaker 1: everybody has a fantastic time. You're not there to poke
Speaker 1: and prod people. That's our job, by the way here today,
Speaker 1: And I think that's that's the difference. That's the difference
Speaker 1: I think between kind of a news agenda and entertainment agenda.
Speaker 1: I am not there to upset anybody. If people say
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about what, why would I care?
Speaker 1: I don't care who you're dating. I don't, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't If you're sick of talking about that film,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to bring it up. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not my job to upset you. And and also the
Speaker 1: audience for our show don't want to see that. They
Speaker 1: don't want to watch people be uncomfortable fort They just
Speaker 1: want to relax and they wanted to be fun. They
Speaker 1: want to watch some famous people on accouch having a
Speaker 1: good time. And that's what we try to provide. And
Speaker 1: you think this relax setting actually yields more from the guests,
Speaker 1: right that, like, if they're comfortable, they actually will say
Speaker 1: more about their lives and their backgrounds and all the rest,
Speaker 1: and the audience will really get to know them. Right,
Speaker 1: That's kind of what I think. I think people if
Speaker 1: if they're on guard. You know, these people, they're not stupid.
Speaker 1: They've been around the block. They've been if not, they've
Speaker 1: been media trained. But they you know, they know what
Speaker 1: they're doing. So they're not going to tell you anything.
Speaker 1: They don't want to tell you. You know, it's it's
Speaker 1: like asking O J. Did you do it? You know
Speaker 1: he's not. That's there's no point. So, uh, if you've
Speaker 1: watched people on the show, if you see the things
Speaker 1: that makes them laugh, or how they react to a
Speaker 1: shocking story, how they react to an anecdote or something,
Speaker 1: it oddly is more of an insight into who they
Speaker 1: are and the sort of person they are than to
Speaker 1: just have them sat and chair by themselves answer questions,
Speaker 1: you know, about their life or their career. You use
Speaker 1: Ryan Gosline as an example, when he laughed uproariously at
Speaker 1: some story that he heard on your show, and kind
Speaker 1: of what that revealed about him, his sense of humor,
Speaker 1: his kind of naturalness, sensibility, because how cute he is
Speaker 1: that we noticed already that was that was on festival.
Speaker 1: But because they're because they because they share the couch
Speaker 1: the guests, there's also really telling things about you know,
Speaker 1: the ones who are interested in the other people on
Speaker 1: the couch, the ones that listen. There are some guests
Speaker 1: and they are nameless, Seriously, they'll remain names. And they'll
Speaker 1: sit there and I'll go, what are they looking at?
Speaker 1: What are they looking at? And then I follow their
Speaker 1: gaze and they're looking at the monitor that's at the
Speaker 1: front of the little set for waiting for their close up,
Speaker 1: waiting to see themselves. And I know that your idea
Speaker 1: of a fantastic guest, and I would like to say,
Speaker 1: just in advance, I would be a fantastic guest. This
Speaker 1: is not my effort to book myself on your show,
Speaker 1: but I did read that you like when people ask
Speaker 1: other guests questions, absolutely, and you don't mind if they
Speaker 1: kind of take the microphone from you and asked the
Speaker 1: guests a question. And best shows, the best shows are
Speaker 1: the ones where I sit in my chair and the
Speaker 1: couch takes on a life of its own and they're
Speaker 1: just talking to each other. And that's those are the
Speaker 1: nights that I enjoyed the most, and I think the
Speaker 1: audience do too, because if there's something sort of almost
Speaker 1: like I don't know, sort of privileged about peering into
Speaker 1: this kind of celebrity dinner party that you would never
Speaker 1: normally be invited to. That it's like that dinner party
Speaker 1: where you, you know, who would you like to have
Speaker 1: dinner with? Dead or alive? Your guests happened to be alive. Basically,
Speaker 1: you're living that out almost every day, well every week, right,
Speaker 1: And some of them I wouldn't choose after dinner. But
Speaker 1: but well, we're going to get to that in a moment.
Speaker 1: But actually I wanted to tell you both the funny
Speaker 1: story to apropos of the asking a question. At one time,
Speaker 1: I was on the Tonight Show when Jay Lenna was hosting,
Speaker 1: and I came out and then there was a second
Speaker 1: guest and I don't even remember his name, but he
Speaker 1: was a young kind of actor and he was quite nervous,
Speaker 1: and his big thing is that he could cry on
Speaker 1: que as out, crying on to and or whatever. So
Speaker 1: I was sitting at, you know, next him. But at
Speaker 1: the Tonight Show, you don't kind of continue to engage.
Speaker 1: You just kind of laugh and chuckling. You're sort of
Speaker 1: like a potty plant. But when he said this, I
Speaker 1: was waiting for Jay to say, okay, cry and he
Speaker 1: never did. And it was It took all the strength
Speaker 1: I had to not say ask him to cry, because
Speaker 1: why would why would you bring it up if you
Speaker 1: weren't going to do I don't know. I think there
Speaker 1: must have been a miscommunication in the pre interview. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so I I like asking questions. The guy who cries said,
Speaker 1: I'll do anything you want except cry, right, And I'm
Speaker 1: just going to say that I can do it. But
Speaker 1: you know, I was going to ask you about the chemistry, grant,
Speaker 1: because your show, obviously with three people on the couch,
Speaker 1: so much of it depends on chemistry and how the
Speaker 1: guests interact. Um has there ever been a moment where
Speaker 1: the three I mean, it just did not seem to
Speaker 1: gell at all. There are, oddly, there are some nights
Speaker 1: when the guests are perfectly fine individually and the just
Speaker 1: is zero chemistry. The funniest times is when that happens
Speaker 1: is when they're all from the same movie. Sometimes we'll
Speaker 1: have three or four people from the same movie and
Speaker 1: you're watching them, think, Wow, that was a long shoot.
Speaker 1: None like this. No bonding at all went on here.
Speaker 1: Clearly a lot of trailer time, separate trailer time went on.
Speaker 1: How do you what do you do in that situation?
Speaker 1: How do you get it kind of cranking? You don't,
Speaker 1: you don't. It's just not a very good show, really,
Speaker 1: that's you know, And that's that's the nice thing about
Speaker 1: having these long runs. You know, you do a bad show,
Speaker 1: you go, we'll try about another one next week. We'll
Speaker 1: do another one next one. How do you prepare? You know,
Speaker 1: we obviously read a lot of articles about you. I
Speaker 1: know more about you than you probably know about you
Speaker 1: at this point, Grant. But when you're doing a show
Speaker 1: like that, do you read up on these folks or well,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's the same when you did you know,
Speaker 1: the morning shows and your talk show. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a team, so people will do. They do all the research.
Speaker 1: They then write quite chunky boggs, I mean kind of
Speaker 1: you know boggs, which I'll read. I read them on
Speaker 1: a Tuesday night, and then we go in on a Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and that's when we spend the day in the office
Speaker 1: together and we kind of choreograph the interviews. So obviously
Speaker 1: there's the core things we have to cover the product.
Speaker 1: So it's a film, a book, an album, whatever they have,
Speaker 1: we've got to talk about those things. And we've got
Speaker 1: to get all that right, and we've got to talk
Speaker 1: about those things enough so that you know, the people
Speaker 1: backstage are happy and the guests are happy, they handless.
Speaker 1: And then and then we try to find the other stories,
Speaker 1: the funny stories and what you're looking for, our moments
Speaker 1: where you can say, oh, you had a funny story
Speaker 1: about your first pet, and then you have a funny
Speaker 1: story about your first pet, and now we've got there's
Speaker 1: a conversation going about animals or whatever, and those are
Speaker 1: the kind of things we try to find. We then
Speaker 1: kind of knit all that together in a sort of
Speaker 1: a sc ripped and then we do this bizarre thing
Speaker 1: and I don't quite know how we started doing it,
Speaker 1: but when we get into the studio on a Thursday,
Speaker 1: we do address rehearsal and the yeah and you know,
Speaker 1: the researchers play the researchers play it again, and we
Speaker 1: do it and they tell the stories and we do
Speaker 1: all this and it gives you you kind of it's
Speaker 1: only after that you kind of go, you know, what
Speaker 1: they didn't talk for like twenty minutes, or that guest,
Speaker 1: you know, it was ages before I got to them,
Speaker 1: or there's too much of them at the beginning, or
Speaker 1: that interview seemed to go on too long, and then
Speaker 1: we have another meeting, we changed things around, and then
Speaker 1: we do the show. But but, but I imagine it's
Speaker 1: hard to replicate the real thing because you never know
Speaker 1: they're going to say. Because sometimes the guests are so
Speaker 1: much better than the researcher, right, we know. The bad
Speaker 1: ones are when the researcher told Jill stories and they're
Speaker 1: really funny, and then the actual person tells their own
Speaker 1: stories and it's like, oh, that was it was funny
Speaker 1: this afternoon. I was gonna ask you, sort of on
Speaker 1: that note, what makes a great guest on your show?
Speaker 1: And what do you think is the best show you've
Speaker 1: ever had? Oh? Um, the show that kind of uh
Speaker 1: we I suppose a lot of us we think we
Speaker 1: like it was. It was a show we did with
Speaker 1: some of the guys for Monument Men. So it was
Speaker 1: Matt Damon, Bill Murray, and Hu Bonneville from Downton Abbey.
Speaker 1: I was just one. Matt Damon got a little bit
Speaker 1: into the sauce. They all got quite into the sauce.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we didn't even mention that you get people
Speaker 1: snuckered before they is that the word what's the British
Speaker 1: word for drying? I think they're like twelve sauce a
Speaker 1: drink is available, case it's available. But you always have
Speaker 1: a little bit of Van Blanc, yes, because I gotta
Speaker 1: think if I look, you know, if I look like
Speaker 1: I'm having a nice time, then maybe someone else will.
Speaker 1: You know. It's I ever get in the grip of
Speaker 1: the grape. No, no, I mean I do not on television. Um,
Speaker 1: but the monument Men's Guys they came on and because
Speaker 1: it was a really I can't remember, there was someone
Speaker 1: else in that movie, and he canceled at the last minute.
Speaker 1: And then the studio was saying, were like, Bill Murray
Speaker 1: might show up, but he might not. We don't know.
Speaker 1: It all depends on he is a nice time of
Speaker 1: the premiere. They might he might join the others. So
Speaker 1: you know, that idea of scripting it and rehearsing it,
Speaker 1: of course, that was all out the window. We were
Speaker 1: just you know, we had no idea what the show
Speaker 1: was going to be until we found out who was
Speaker 1: going to rock up. And so Bill Murray did rock up.
Speaker 1: He was in a great mood and that was one
Speaker 1: of those nights where I did nothing. I just watched
Speaker 1: the couch. I watched the couch and wasn't Matt Damon
Speaker 1: really good as well? Why were they were all terrific?
Speaker 1: They just told their stories. They made each other. That
Speaker 1: was lovely was they made each other laugh so much.
Speaker 1: They enjoyed each other. When you were going over the
Speaker 1: script and you're really Jumper is a sweater? I actually
Speaker 1: asked it to where will will dumb her everything? I
Speaker 1: take my woolet Jumper, So in this scene in the
Speaker 1: hot tip, am I going to be in my wooley
Speaker 1: j have any guests of this show? And I suppose
Speaker 1: that is what makes a good on a bullet that
Speaker 1: time point, I don't know. Katie expression on a bull
Speaker 1: well be useful to the bull if they were nursing
Speaker 1: a baby bull, although bulls they can. Yeah, that's it, boy,
Speaker 1: I'll work with you later, Okay. And useless and privileged
Speaker 1: at the same time, because you know I have the
Speaker 1: best seat in the house. Can I ask you something? Well,
Speaker 1: clearly I can. Everybody shares a couch on your show,
Speaker 1: except Hillary Clinton, who came on last year. Did she
Speaker 1: have like a lot of handlers making a lot of
Speaker 1: demands or why did you decide to put her on alone?
Speaker 1: Because the only little window of opportunity we had with
Speaker 1: her was I think eleven o'clock in the morning, so
Speaker 1: we kind of thought, we don't want to do a
Speaker 1: whole show at eleven o'clock in the morning. So we
Speaker 1: have done these one on ones and they we either
Speaker 1: start the show with the one of when we did
Speaker 1: a one woman with Charlie Sheen was in the middle
Speaker 1: of the drug Yes it was. It was kind of
Speaker 1: towards the end of that, but yes, it was a
Speaker 1: long period and we just kind of, actually, that's a
Speaker 1: lot to ask other people to actually, yeah, he's HIV positive,
Speaker 1: so that we're very serious and we wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about stuff like that. So so we do occasionally do these, uh,
Speaker 1: single interviews. So with the Hillary because we only had
Speaker 1: the left frolock in the morning, so we get we
Speaker 1: put out there saying, look, if anybody wants to come
Speaker 1: and see an interview with Hillary Clinton at eleven o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning, feel free. So audience full, six hundred
Speaker 1: people there, six d people. They show up. They did
Speaker 1: not see until I think a quarter past four in
Speaker 1: the after I read that what she heard her foot. No,
Speaker 1: that's right, and she was in a cast, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she had one of those boot things. Yeah. And it
Speaker 1: was extraordinary because we didn't we literally did not know
Speaker 1: what was going on. They didn't tell you anything. They
Speaker 1: were telling us as much as they could, but they
Speaker 1: didn't know how badly she had hurt her foot. She
Speaker 1: didn't know what you know, what, was she going to
Speaker 1: need surgery? Da dada? She did rock up and she
Speaker 1: was you know, I think she was on pain medication
Speaker 1: by the end of the That makes for an interesting interview.
Speaker 1: A little pain medication next with a little caepernet. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no booze. I think I did have to because otherwise
Speaker 1: it would looked weird if I didn't have one. So
Speaker 1: it was good. It was good for me that it
Speaker 1: moved in the afternoon. So but but by the end
Speaker 1: you could tell that the what was causing her pain
Speaker 1: and she was uncomfortable. But but nice that she showed up. No,
Speaker 1: nice that she showed up. And and it was one
Speaker 1: of those weird things where the minute and elections over,
Speaker 1: you suddenly see who they should have been all along.
Speaker 1: You know, her interview was so great. Why weren't you
Speaker 1: like this? Why was it so great? Because she was
Speaker 1: she was on guarded she wasn't trying to second guess everything. Well,
Speaker 1: this was after the election of the inauguration, so she
Speaker 1: could let her hair down, and she'd written a book
Speaker 1: where she'd kind of put it all in there. And
Speaker 1: the book. Have you read the book? I haven't read.
Speaker 1: I want to read it. It's on my list. It
Speaker 1: is good. And what isn't it interesting? The things she
Speaker 1: can't let go of? These we well know, but like
Speaker 1: but weird. There's like an interview where they didn't ask
Speaker 1: her enough questions about foreign policy and stuff, and you're like,
Speaker 1: I think I know what interviews she's talking. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was on the Intrepid. So you enjoyed her a lot.
Speaker 1: She was funny and she also talked about the inauguration.
Speaker 1: We have a clip from that interview. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's weak Shakespearean right. You went to
Speaker 1: the in racial and that was because you were first lady,
Speaker 1: not because you're being right. And and you know, I
Speaker 1: really tried to get out of going. Um, I you know,
Speaker 1: because I was going, not as the candidate or the
Speaker 1: opponent but as a former first lady, because the tradition
Speaker 1: is presidents and former first ladies all show up, regardless
Speaker 1: of Republican or Democrat, to show support continuity of our government. So,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I didn't know what to expect. What
Speaker 1: I wanted to have happened was despite the kind of
Speaker 1: campaign he ran, I wanted him to rise to the
Speaker 1: occasion of being our president and being the president for everybody,
Speaker 1: not just people who supported him. That didn't happen. And
Speaker 1: so we were we were sitting there listening. I was
Speaker 1: sitting next to George W. Bush and Bill was on
Speaker 1: my other side, and we were listening to this really dark,
Speaker 1: divisive speech that I just scribe as a cry from
Speaker 1: the white nationalist gut um. It wasn't an outreach. It
Speaker 1: was a narrowing and a hammering of what he had
Speaker 1: said before. And it's reported, so I put it in
Speaker 1: the book. It's reported that George W. Bush, as it ends,
Speaker 1: says that was some weird ship. She's so likable. It's
Speaker 1: so funny to hear her just say that, right, because
Speaker 1: it's just you just feel like if that woman had campaigned,
Speaker 1: she had done a lot better. Maybe, although she would
Speaker 1: have offended a bunch of people. She'd have gotten a
Speaker 1: denial from George W. Bush if that had happened before.
Speaker 1: I mean careful, but but but I think she was
Speaker 1: too cautious and too careful. If she had let her
Speaker 1: personality show in this warm, funny side of her, I
Speaker 1: think it would have made a big difference. And it
Speaker 1: was something I don't know whether it's about. Because she
Speaker 1: was a woman, she felt she had to be better
Speaker 1: and try harder, but she was. But she was all
Speaker 1: about doing her homework. She was all about I'm prepared,
Speaker 1: and I say, you are up against this guy who
Speaker 1: you know, Like I said, she was worried about her
Speaker 1: foreign policy. That guy couldn't point out American CDs on
Speaker 1: a map, and nobody cared. She always, I think, seemed
Speaker 1: like the prepared girl in the front of the class,
Speaker 1: always with her hand up in the A yes's exactly
Speaker 1: Tracy Flick. But you know, I have to just say
Speaker 1: that watching that inauguration, you had to admire how stoic
Speaker 1: and poise she was because it must have really driven
Speaker 1: her crazy. And you know what she would have said
Speaker 1: about that, I'm always liked best when I'm a victim.
Speaker 1: She's made this point several times. Because she was, you know,
Speaker 1: hurt and defeated, people are more sympathetic the same thing
Speaker 1: to happen when her husband cheated on her with Monica Lewinsky.
Speaker 1: And I think that is very gendered. Actually there's something
Speaker 1: you know, because people though, oh, I you know, I
Speaker 1: hate her some because when we announced she was going
Speaker 1: to be on, you actually saw it was weird. I've
Speaker 1: never encountered Russian bots before, but suddenly, well yeah, because
Speaker 1: I thought that's so weird. And sure enough, even when
Speaker 1: the show went out, when it was going out in
Speaker 1: real time, um, the feed was really positive. It was
Speaker 1: real viewers in Britain watching an interview with Hillary, and
Speaker 1: once the morning came and they were up in Russia
Speaker 1: and they had time, they want, Oh that happened, we
Speaker 1: better get in there. Suddenly you all this negativity, but
Speaker 1: at a random time when the show wasn't on anywhere.
Speaker 1: The show, yeah it was, it wasn't interesting. But also
Speaker 1: I do think you know, the way that people hate her,
Speaker 1: You I think fair enough hate a politician, you know,
Speaker 1: be feel free to head a politician. But to those people,
Speaker 1: you've gotta think, is there a male politician you hate
Speaker 1: as much as you hate her, and I think the
Speaker 1: answer is no, And therefore that has to be something
Speaker 1: to do with gender. Well, do you think that Margaret
Speaker 1: Thatcher faced some of the same problems that Hillary Clinton faced.
Speaker 1: I'm sort of too young to really well. Actually, well,
Speaker 1: let's say other female politicians, even Theresa May. I mean
Speaker 1: Theresa A definitely, I think she does. Is it a
Speaker 1: similar kind of misogyny in your view? Certainly, I think
Speaker 1: there's that slightly um, you know, head girl. But but
Speaker 1: also with her, there's almost a sort of masochistic about it.
Speaker 1: She it's you know, that thing about wanting to be
Speaker 1: a victim. She she walks into fire. I mean she
Speaker 1: she wants it, she draws it on herself and in
Speaker 1: a way, you know, after Brexit, you know, anything could
Speaker 1: have happened when anybody who was Prime minister at that
Speaker 1: point would have been a victim. But who wants that job,
Speaker 1: you know, like, get the job after it's happened. Don't
Speaker 1: don't try to steer the country. You know in this inevitably,
Speaker 1: whoever is prime minister right after Brexit is going to
Speaker 1: have an impossible time. I think, yeah, and all the
Speaker 1: boys scarpered and left it to head girl to clean
Speaker 1: up the mess. She's like the vomit monitor or something.
Speaker 1: You know, she's out in the hole with a bucket. Well,
Speaker 1: the boys are waiting outside in the playground and is
Speaker 1: it gone yet? And we'll come in when it's clean. Well,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a break and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about Brexit. We're going to talk
Speaker 1: about Trump. We're going to talk about your childhood and
Speaker 1: how you got to where you are today. We're basically
Speaker 1: going to be here for five hours. Great, I hope
Speaker 1: you're okay about that. So we'll be back right after this,
Speaker 1: and we're back. You've written about what maybe called your
Speaker 1: love love relationship with alcohol. You did go to a
Speaker 1: A for a few days at one point, but obviously
Speaker 1: it didn't stick. Anyone watching your show that can I
Speaker 1: just say that thing about me going to a A
Speaker 1: I I, what happened? Was that fake news? What it's
Speaker 1: sort of fake news. All that happened was I was
Speaker 1: staying in l A with Carrie Fisher and I was
Speaker 1: getting a lift downtown to meet friends to go for drinks.
Speaker 1: But we had to stop because she was going to
Speaker 1: an a meeting on the way, So you just wrapped
Speaker 1: her off. No no, she was driving, so I had
Speaker 1: to go away lift with a y no no no,
Speaker 1: So I had to go in and wait for the meeting,
Speaker 1: and then she continued the drive down. So I so
Speaker 1: I have attended a two or three waiting, but you didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't go to the I swung by, Okay, didn't
Speaker 1: ever worry about your your drinking it off. I do,
Speaker 1: not so much in terms of addiction, more in terms
Speaker 1: of just health and what it's doing to myself. So
Speaker 1: when I turned fifty, I had a big sort of
Speaker 1: week called an emot What does that sound like? A
Speaker 1: big health checky type thing? Okay, is something you do
Speaker 1: to your car, right, okay? So a tuna yeah, that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. So I had what this scan and
Speaker 1: you know, like they give pregnant women. By the way,
Speaker 1: you're pretty buff. I just want to point out I cycle. Okay.
Speaker 1: So so I'm there and they put that kind of
Speaker 1: weird jelly on you. Oh yeah, I'm familiar with it.
Speaker 1: Happy had two babies and many sonograms, so I'm not familiar.
Speaker 1: You're young. You're young. So they're doing this and he's
Speaker 1: going and this is the such and search and this
Speaker 1: is and he goes and around here is the liver
Speaker 1: and I literally went like, what is that? Like, wait
Speaker 1: a second, we can't find it. It's covered with stuff.
Speaker 1: There's an old cauliflower in here. And it was fine.
Speaker 1: It was fine. Drink so far good, I must say
Speaker 1: I do because it annoys me when people talk about
Speaker 1: not drinking. So I don't talk about cutting down. But
Speaker 1: of course this is in America, so I can. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I do drink a lot less than I used to.
Speaker 1: And what is your drink of choice? White wine, vodka, champagne,
Speaker 1: anything you can see through I feel apart from yeah
Speaker 1: that guy thing. Okay, so this is our bridge to
Speaker 1: your background. Okay, yes you're from Ireland, yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 1: And a little bit about your dad. So your dad
Speaker 1: was a salesman for Guinness. Yes, very good. Yeah you
Speaker 1: brought it back, Yeah we did, we did, so tell
Speaker 1: us about that. And also you grew up in a
Speaker 1: Protestant family in a Catholic stronghold in Ireland before the
Speaker 1: peace Deal, when you know, these two groups were at
Speaker 1: each other's throats. What was that like? How did it
Speaker 1: shape you? And I think my dad working in the
Speaker 1: Guinness was just heated job. And what's interesting is, I
Speaker 1: suppose from outside point is it's the big Irish firm.
Speaker 1: You know, people have heard of Guinness, but really living there,
Speaker 1: he just had a job and off he went every
Speaker 1: day and didn't came back. The growing up Protestant in
Speaker 1: southern Ireland, County Cork, in County Cork, and I actually
Speaker 1: moved around a lot, but always in southern My mother's
Speaker 1: from Belfast up in the north, and I think people
Speaker 1: kind of misconstruy was going on back then. There was
Speaker 1: no trouble in the south. All the troubles were in
Speaker 1: the north. But what was odd about it was that
Speaker 1: you were kind of isolated in the community. So I
Speaker 1: remember we moved to Abandon, where my mother still lived,
Speaker 1: and we moved there during the summer holidays and we
Speaker 1: lived in a house in the street and I played
Speaker 1: with all the other kids and I went to the
Speaker 1: birthday parties did during the summer. The end of the
Speaker 1: summer we went to school. I never saw this children again.
Speaker 1: They were segregated schools. Yeah, we went to a protest school.
Speaker 1: They went to their school and we just didn't hang
Speaker 1: out again, not in a kind of you know, because
Speaker 1: obviously we were allowed to play together. No one sound
Speaker 1: like the jet. Yeah, it wasn't like that, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't like kind of you know, the Protestant parents were
Speaker 1: telling their kids not to play with the Catholic kids,
Speaker 1: and the Catholic parents it was just you didn't go
Speaker 1: to school with them, so I don't know you anymore.
Speaker 1: And that's just the way kids are. But I think
Speaker 1: that it was kind of isolating and made you feel
Speaker 1: slightly other, particularly because you know, in Ireland, Catholicism is everywhere.
Speaker 1: You know, the Angelis comes on the TV at six o'clock,
Speaker 1: the bells ring and there's the Virgin Mary on the radio.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're on the bus and you'd go
Speaker 1: past a chapel, everyone on the bus blesses themselves, you know,
Speaker 1: and except you. Yeah, and and and obviously those things
Speaker 1: have changed enormously. You know. I'm so proud the country that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of the country that Ireland has become.
Speaker 1: It's well, especially with this recent historic vote on abortion.
Speaker 1: It blows my mind that that is a country that
Speaker 1: I left thirty years ago. That it would have been
Speaker 1: unheard of that the place I left would have a
Speaker 1: referendum on gay marriage, have a referendum on abortion and
Speaker 1: have an overwhelming yes vote, not just a squeaking vibe. Overwhelming,
Speaker 1: and that is down. I think to young people in Ireland,
Speaker 1: they are terrific. They are fashioning a republic for themselves
Speaker 1: that's fit for purpose. It has room for them to
Speaker 1: live the life they want to live in it and
Speaker 1: they're not being told what to do by the church anymore.
Speaker 1: And it is the government of the people rather than
Speaker 1: the government of Rome, and it's it's terrific. When you
Speaker 1: were growing up, I know that your mom said, as
Speaker 1: even as a four year old, that you might be
Speaker 1: faced with bullying and she gave you sort of coping
Speaker 1: skills about how to deal with that, which was ignore
Speaker 1: the bullies. Just don't validate anything they've said. And it
Speaker 1: seems to me that lesson is kind of stayed with
Speaker 1: you your entire life. It is very good advice in
Speaker 1: stopping bullying in the You know, bullies want a reaction.
Speaker 1: If you don't react that they sort they must get bored. However,
Speaker 1: I think it does make you overall slightly emotionally disengaged life.
Speaker 1: I mean, what advice would you give to your kids
Speaker 1: if they were being bullied or did you prep them
Speaker 1: for school? Did you give them you just got to
Speaker 1: send them to a very nice school where that wasn't
Speaker 1: going to happen. I mean everything, I think things happened,
Speaker 1: and I think my daughter was actually bullied in high school.
Speaker 1: And I don't know. I think every situation is different,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of how you handle it, and
Speaker 1: you just hope you equip them with enough sort of
Speaker 1: inner strength that they're able to forge ahead. But so
Speaker 1: don't you guys think I think like bullying is so
Speaker 1: going to be the next me too, the amount of
Speaker 1: bullying in the workplace that goes on, Like really you're
Speaker 1: online that too, But don't worry, Milannia. Trump's gonna handle
Speaker 1: all that be better best, Actually Obama's would be better.
Speaker 1: So she cribbed for Michelle, like a third or fourth
Speaker 1: time would be best. Did she rock up today? Did
Speaker 1: you because we're doing this earlier in the week, did
Speaker 1: she as she seen the light of day? No, actually
Speaker 1: is having a public appearance in the Veterans event, but
Speaker 1: I read that it was going to happen, so still
Speaker 1: earlier as of this recording, we are unsure whether, but
Speaker 1: it is apparently she is going to make an appearance
Speaker 1: that is such an interesting thing, and who knows, you know,
Speaker 1: everything becomes a huge scandal, like no matter what it seems.
Speaker 1: I think he enjoyed this we were discussing earlier. I
Speaker 1: think he enjoys this stuff because inevitably it's a distraction
Speaker 1: from the last scandal, which happened twenty minutes ago, which
Speaker 1: he doesn't want to talk about. And also, these scandals
Speaker 1: don't matter, So let's talk about Malanni a missing for
Speaker 1: days rather than talk about the sanctions or the trade
Speaker 1: deals and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about Trump seven. So back to you.
Speaker 1: Did you when did you get a sense that you did?
Speaker 1: You know, sort of at what age did you feel
Speaker 1: like I'm gay? You know? Now this sounds like a joke,
Speaker 1: but it's not. But a part of it. I think
Speaker 1: part of my realization was slow. Partly I was I
Speaker 1: was a late sort of tip for a twig, and
Speaker 1: it was to with being Protestant in Southern Ireland. If
Speaker 1: you talk to a lot of gay people who grew
Speaker 1: up in kind of rural communities, they always feel say
Speaker 1: they felt like a foreigner. They felt sort of all yeah,
Speaker 1: they just felt slightly out of step with everyone, And
Speaker 1: so you can imagine that if you actually can name
Speaker 1: that growing up, you can go, oh, well, I feel
Speaker 1: like that because I'm a Protestant, I am slightly out
Speaker 1: of step with everybody. Um. It was only when I
Speaker 1: left Ireland diagorized that those feelings weren't Protestant feelings. Different, different,
Speaker 1: you told the Guardian, and I was really struck by
Speaker 1: this quote. I don't think anyone wants to be gay.
Speaker 1: For a cosmopolitan child living in London, on the right
Speaker 1: side of town, maybe it wouldn't cost them a second thought.
Speaker 1: But when I was growing up it did cost me
Speaker 1: a second thought. I thought I'd be a social pariah.
Speaker 1: So did it take you a while to kind of
Speaker 1: accept who you are? And yes, you know, I hope
Speaker 1: the world is different from most young people now, and
Speaker 1: certainly that's the world we want to live in. My
Speaker 1: worry is that a lot people still don't live in
Speaker 1: that world. The trouble is I've sort of been out
Speaker 1: of it for so long. You know, living in London
Speaker 1: is you know, just what doesn't cross your mind, and
Speaker 1: you forget how big the world is. But I have
Speaker 1: to say when I went back to my old school
Speaker 1: for you know, reunion, yeah, well know, to give up prizes,
Speaker 1: like a prize day type thing. You know, I met
Speaker 1: these kids. Not only were they you know, the role
Speaker 1: was kind of obviously gay kids at your school, but
Speaker 1: these ones were out and that blew my mind. Well,
Speaker 1: I think to your earlier point about young people. You know,
Speaker 1: my daughters are twenty six and twenty two, and you know,
Speaker 1: high schools all over the country have lgbt Q clubs. Uh.
Speaker 1: It is just a very different atmosphere where people are
Speaker 1: encouraged to express their individuality and in a really positive way.
Speaker 1: And I think it's wonderful. But you know what happened
Speaker 1: to you though, And I guess when you were in
Speaker 1: college you almost died Graham, Katie, I did. You're making
Speaker 1: fun of it now, but I read about it and
Speaker 1: I was really upset. Well, I was mugged. I was mugged,
Speaker 1: but not just mugged. No, I was stabbed as part
Speaker 1: of the muggy. I must say, I don't remember the stabbing.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things. I thought I was just
Speaker 1: mugged and they ran off in the re really thought
Speaker 1: you were just mugged and you were stabbed and beaten
Speaker 1: and all the rest. They got to hit me over
Speaker 1: the head with a thing and it sounded like a
Speaker 1: bit of like plastic piping, and then you realize, oh, no,
Speaker 1: that is like a wooden thing. But the plastic piping
Speaker 1: bit is the noise your skull makes here in London. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, we're playing into Trump's narrative now. It's so
Speaker 1: dangerous here riding immigrants. So I they then, you know,
Speaker 1: they ran so from my bag and they left me
Speaker 1: on the on the pavement and ran off and I
Speaker 1: watched them go and they didn't get up now, And
Speaker 1: when I went to get up, I felt like I
Speaker 1: was peeling myself off the ground. And that's odd. And
Speaker 1: I looked down and you know, I'm just soaked with
Speaker 1: blood and you lost half of your I did in
Speaker 1: the end, half my blood. But what was kind of
Speaker 1: what I liked. I was at drama school at the
Speaker 1: time and we were doing you know Shakespeare. You know
Speaker 1: that the Shakespeare people always go, you know, I've been
Speaker 1: run through all that sort of stuff, and you've always thought, oh,
Speaker 1: that's because they know, you know, they no special effects
Speaker 1: back in Shakespeare stile, so people had to say I've
Speaker 1: been run through. But in fact, it's what you say
Speaker 1: because you're so surprised because your adrenaline is up, so
Speaker 1: you didn't you don't feel it. It's like John Lennon
Speaker 1: saying I've been shot, you know, and you look down
Speaker 1: and go, oh, I've been stabbed. That sounds like Monty
Speaker 1: Python and you and you have to say it out
Speaker 1: loud because it's so astonishing. And then I sort of
Speaker 1: wandered around a bit and then a very nice old
Speaker 1: couple rang an ambulance and they saved my life. Why
Speaker 1: did they do this to you? Do you think? Do
Speaker 1: you think it was a random thing? Oh? Totally random?
Speaker 1: Yeah I was, I was. It wasn't It had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with homopho or anything like that. I don't
Speaker 1: think so. I mean, I was just by myself. I
Speaker 1: was wearing a very nice suit, but I was gonna
Speaker 1: say I was wearing a dress. And what's the big
Speaker 1: deal was the suit was too well cut and it
Speaker 1: was a nice second hand suit. Ruined, of course, ruined.
Speaker 1: And that's the tragic Well after after you got out
Speaker 1: of school, you actually dropped out of school, right. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: when you dropped out, is this after before you joined
Speaker 1: the commune in San Francisco? Okay, what's the timeline? The
Speaker 1: timeline is the timeline is I went to University College Cork.
Speaker 1: I did two years there and then moving with me.
Speaker 1: Then I went to America for a year on one
Speaker 1: of those in and we at these J one visas
Speaker 1: we can go and work for things. So I did
Speaker 1: that wait tables and I had I think it was
Speaker 1: a trailways. Are they gone now? Trailways buses? Yeah, Brian
Speaker 1: hasn't ever ridden one, but they still still true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so seven day is rambler ticket for trailways. The idea
Speaker 1: was going to land in New York and I was
Speaker 1: going to get l A, but in fact it ran
Speaker 1: out in San Francisco. Um, so I couldn't get to
Speaker 1: l A. But actually it was quite Google had some
Speaker 1: phone number there and with this one woman, she gave
Speaker 1: me the number for this commune. It was called Star Dance.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it's called that. It's changed its
Speaker 1: name now Start Dance. And I was sort of an
Speaker 1: economic hippie. It was just it was cheap rent. So
Speaker 1: I just I lived in this commun shop was never
Speaker 1: really part. I mean I was part of the commune.
Speaker 1: I did do everything with them. Did you stay there
Speaker 1: and nearly a year? Um? And I loved it. I
Speaker 1: absolutely loved it. Um. Yeah, but you didn't love it
Speaker 1: that much because she came back to London. It was
Speaker 1: never my life. I always felt I couldn't really start
Speaker 1: my life in America. And then you came back here
Speaker 1: and you kind of struggled for a while to find work,
Speaker 1: to get the sorts of parts you wanted. You want
Speaker 1: to be a comedian, and at some point you sort
Speaker 1: of wondered, am I a waiter trying to become an
Speaker 1: actor and a comedian or am I just destined to
Speaker 1: do what I'm doing now? Well, it's one of those
Speaker 1: weird things that I think, you know, talking to people
Speaker 1: on my show, there are certain common threads in people's
Speaker 1: success stories, and one of the common threads is they
Speaker 1: are stupid, Like they made really terrible choices that you
Speaker 1: would not recommend anyone make, but it turned out for them,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So they're on the couch.
Speaker 1: So they're on the couch. That's great, But there must
Speaker 1: be lots of people who are not on a couch
Speaker 1: who are struggling somewhere thinking, oh, maybe I shouldn't have
Speaker 1: dropped out of school, maybe I shouldn't have moved to
Speaker 1: l a nothing but fifty dollars, or maybe I shouldn't
Speaker 1: have But we only hear the success stories. Those are
Speaker 1: the people said. So I was one of those people.
Speaker 1: If I had been my friend, I would have said,
Speaker 1: give it up, just stop already. This is pathetic. It's
Speaker 1: painful to watch you. It is clearly never going to
Speaker 1: happen for you, but you hung in there. I hung
Speaker 1: in there because I had no plan B. And I
Speaker 1: think that's often. Uh, that's good advice to people don't
Speaker 1: have a plan B. Again, No, I think it's it's
Speaker 1: funny because you obviously always hear the opposite. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I had no plan B. It wasn't I got a
Speaker 1: plan A. I just had the plan. And when it
Speaker 1: wasn't working, I had no option but just to continue
Speaker 1: with the terrible plan. But happily I did started. I
Speaker 1: started getting its radio work and then it's a TV work.
Speaker 1: And the thing that makes me happy is my dad
Speaker 1: lived to see me have some success, so he didn't
Speaker 1: go to his grave worrying about me. Which would have
Speaker 1: just been the most horrible thing to do to your
Speaker 1: dad was to you know, let him die, thinking what
Speaker 1: the hell is going to happen to that loser? So
Speaker 1: is your mom still? Yeah, I know she's still with us.
Speaker 1: She's hanging in there, old boots. You're lucky. You're lucky
Speaker 1: because it's hard when you lose both parents. You know,
Speaker 1: there's you feel so Heather, Well, there's no good time,
Speaker 1: is there? You're never ready? And my mom was ninety
Speaker 1: one and my dad was ninety and I still, you know,
Speaker 1: just I'm so sad that they're gone. When people say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: they lived a long life, and as though you want
Speaker 1: to put them out to pasture just because they're ninety,
Speaker 1: you know, but I guess I think that on the
Speaker 1: other hand, you are lucky to have somebody as long
Speaker 1: as as that. Okay, I've gotta tee you web for this.
Speaker 1: I gotta te you up for this. So one of
Speaker 1: your jobs in two thousand five is you moved to
Speaker 1: the BBC with a show call. How do you solve
Speaker 1: the problem like Marie uh beautiful guests getting mad? Take
Speaker 1: this cloud and pin it down? How do you find
Speaker 1: a word that means Marie h a flibberty gibbet a
Speaker 1: will of will whisp a glass and she's doing this
Speaker 1: from memory. Our listeners get really mad when she doesn't
Speaker 1: sing for an episode. I can't sing, but I love
Speaker 1: to sing. No, not really, But but tell me about
Speaker 1: that show, because it was with Andrew Lloyd Webber. He
Speaker 1: was searching for Maria because he was going to do
Speaker 1: the stage version of Sound of Music. He acquired the
Speaker 1: rights and he was going to put it on the
Speaker 1: West End, and he came up with this genius idea,
Speaker 1: how do you solve a problem like Marial. I think
Speaker 1: it was one of those shows where the name came
Speaker 1: up first. Yeah, it's so clever. It's clever. And they
Speaker 1: did a casting show and so what was your role
Speaker 1: in it? I literally go up next. It's blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah like the Ryan Secret. Yeah, yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: I was doing. Yeah. So it was so easy. It
Speaker 1: couldn't have been an easier job. Was it a massive hit?
Speaker 1: It was? It did really well. We did a bunch
Speaker 1: of them. We we cast Maria, then we did Joseph
Speaker 1: for Joseph and the Technicolor, we did Nancy from Oliver
Speaker 1: did you say, were is Nancy? We didn't do that.
Speaker 1: That one was called I do anything, Yeah, anything to me? Okay, sorry,
Speaker 1: there were probably in a show to mood. It's also
Speaker 1: heavily jet lag, so I apologize. But anyway, so how
Speaker 1: what that sounds like? So much fun? It was hoot
Speaker 1: and holler, and I love Andrew. Working with Andrew is
Speaker 1: just terrific. Have you guys interviewed him? You know what?
Speaker 1: I know we tried to for this trip out of town. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he blew us off ground, so maybe you can pick
Speaker 1: us up. But is he great? I really like him
Speaker 1: because he's like a wonderful teacher because he is so
Speaker 1: passionate and enthusiastic about certain things like art, like musicals,
Speaker 1: like music, and when he talks to you, it's infectious.
Speaker 1: So that's what I mean, exactly a great teacher. So
Speaker 1: I'm not that interested in any of those things, but
Speaker 1: when I'm with him, I am, and and actually the
Speaker 1: love of music has sort of stayed with me and
Speaker 1: I now I do go to see all the new
Speaker 1: musicals and you know, have opinions like I know what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. I haven't seen that because not my favorite.
Speaker 1: When I when I met When I met him, he
Speaker 1: would he would do that. He would refer to scenes
Speaker 1: from Phantom of the Opera and I would just have
Speaker 1: a smile. And not because I've never seen Phantom the Opera,
Speaker 1: but when you were as rich as he is, he's
Speaker 1: got every right to assume that everyone on planet Earth
Speaker 1: has paid to see it. I did finally see it
Speaker 1: with my mother. My mother wanted to see it. I
Speaker 1: took her and it was to be mostly populated by
Speaker 1: Japanese tourist theory. Really it was extraordinary. It was proper
Speaker 1: tourist audience, like, wow, who are you? Well, he's enormously talented, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, so we can't just say nice things.
Speaker 1: Who's a celebrity you really don't like? You know what?
Speaker 1: I think you guys will know this most I think
Speaker 1: most people are nice in themselves. It's the people around
Speaker 1: them that that is so true. I interviewed Galgadote recently
Speaker 1: and I loved her and I wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: her because she was in the Israeli Army. She has
Speaker 1: a very interesting backstory, not just as a wonder woman.
Speaker 1: Her publicist was such a jerk and kept cutting me off,
Speaker 1: and I was like, what are you doing? She's an
Speaker 1: intelligent woman. She can have a smart conversation. I hate that,
Speaker 1: But do you think I guess I won't be interviewing Keel.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about a well known person that Katie
Speaker 1: and I both like a lot, Judy Dench and Peter Bitch.
Speaker 1: We have a clip, we have a clip. We want
Speaker 1: to play and dud do you still go clubbing? Do
Speaker 1: you still cut a robe? Do you? I have never
Speaker 1: ever been to a club in my life? Terrible, Yes,
Speaker 1: sorry for me like a rogue. Oh do I yes,
Speaker 1: never been to a night club? Yes, you have? Absolutely.
Speaker 1: They took us into the back door. Wouldn't the story
Speaker 1: of her life? The only time? Is that really the
Speaker 1: only time? Yes? Did you not have a nice night?
Speaker 1: You look like you're having fun? Second, we did? I'm
Speaker 1: gay and I've never been to heaven. That's astonishing. Why
Speaker 1: were you there for God? That's a good question too.
Speaker 1: I know the answer to that as well. You were
Speaker 1: there to share what you were there to see share
Speaker 1: the singer share. And of course it was all the
Speaker 1: more fun because Elton John was with Judy den Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: because they're kind of egging each other on and kind
Speaker 1: of enjoying each other. Yeah, no, she was in there.
Speaker 1: I think it was around tea with Mussolini time and
Speaker 1: they Share was premier new single at the time. Believe
Speaker 1: do you believe that? Surely the engineer should have picked
Speaker 1: up on that and immediately got from And it was
Speaker 1: a very odd night because heaven is this big gay night.
Speaker 1: It was a big gay nightclub in London, and you know,
Speaker 1: so obviously we're there to see Share, but you don't
Speaker 1: expect to see Judy and you don't expect Sir Ben
Speaker 1: Kingsley to wander on and introduce Share. Audience audience was
Speaker 1: like God's game. Can you explain the big red chair
Speaker 1: on your show for people who haven't seen it? I
Speaker 1: can the big red chair, Um, not the big red
Speaker 1: share the big bigger chair to the big red chair
Speaker 1: is I think we do. At the end of the show,
Speaker 1: it's a segment where we get audience members in and
Speaker 1: they basically try to tell their great story. They're one
Speaker 1: good anecdote, you know, if you're all down you're in
Speaker 1: the bar and everyone swapping stories. Oh this thing happened
Speaker 1: to me, this is happened to me. You're a great one.
Speaker 1: If you were at all boring. There's a big lever
Speaker 1: and we flip it and you're gone. And it came
Speaker 1: about because and again this is very British where it
Speaker 1: came up, and there was a comic called Ronnie Corbett
Speaker 1: and he used to tell these very long rambling stories
Speaker 1: as part of the show. He's probably the two Ronnie.
Speaker 1: They're a very famous double act here, and he would
Speaker 1: tell these long rambling stories about I said to the
Speaker 1: producer blah blah. And when he was a guest, we thought,
Speaker 1: how funny. We'll get audience members to try to tell
Speaker 1: stories and then we'll have a lever and death. Great,
Speaker 1: just for one off thing. So it was done. And
Speaker 1: then afterwards the line producer came to us and said,
Speaker 1: do you know how much that chair cost? And we
Speaker 1: were like no, anyway, we needed to use it again
Speaker 1: because it was spending so so, so he came up
Speaker 1: with this idea and now we use it every week.
Speaker 1: So in fact, it was money well spent. That other
Speaker 1: that happens. Then one thing leads to another in the
Speaker 1: dog basket and he gets injured. Anyway, Um, okay, so
Speaker 1: many bits of this story missing. So you're having sex
Speaker 1: in a dog basket to another, hope, leave a pool,
Speaker 1: leave a great and so basically is there an objection seat?
Speaker 1: It kind of flips the it just does anybody get hurt? No? No,
Speaker 1: In fact, it looks more shocking on the screen when
Speaker 1: you actually when if you do it, it's quite a
Speaker 1: shallow little dip. It's not bad at all. We're going
Speaker 1: to wrap things up pretty soon. Of course, we could
Speaker 1: talk to you all day, but we know you probably
Speaker 1: have a life and things to do. But you were
Speaker 1: on Stephen Colbert and he asked you about Trump and
Speaker 1: how people across the pond view him. So let's listen
Speaker 1: to that. You're not the most political, but you guys
Speaker 1: talk about Trump over there. Well, you know we're heard
Speaker 1: if your political situation has reached us U across the pond, Yeah,
Speaker 1: across the pond. Yeah, it's uh, you know to put
Speaker 1: international news and we get it, and we do do,
Speaker 1: I mean, why not do? It's like shooting fish in
Speaker 1: a barrel making fun of him. So so you know,
Speaker 1: all these useless comedy writers are not like I can
Speaker 1: do these jokes exactly because he writes them for you.
Speaker 1: The fish happens to be the greatest democracy in the world. Unfortunately. Yes,
Speaker 1: and you're shooting him with a gun, but he's got
Speaker 1: a bomb, so yeah, it's it's worrisome. The other thing
Speaker 1: that maybe people can explain is we're all aware that
Speaker 1: his you know, his approval ratings are rock bottom, terrible,
Speaker 1: never never, never been worse. But why aren't they zero?
Speaker 1: That's what I like you who aren't those people who
Speaker 1: were like because I get I get that you were
Speaker 1: a fan of the Apprentice, you thought always straight talking,
Speaker 1: you got to shake things up, But at this point,
Speaker 1: who is going no, No, he's doing a good job.
Speaker 1: And that's I think it's I think it's some cost,
Speaker 1: Like people have already invested so much in him that
Speaker 1: they're just going to ride the bomb all the way down. Wow, everyone,
Speaker 1: And that joke hasn't aged well, has it? Because ratings
Speaker 1: are quite almost normal now, Wow, Like, what do people
Speaker 1: here think of Donald Trump? I know, obviously you can't
Speaker 1: say for all all Brits, but in general, what's the
Speaker 1: sentiment and is it does it fall along the lines
Speaker 1: of Brexit? And I think there is there is certainly
Speaker 1: some support from you here, you know, because we do
Speaker 1: jokes about it on the show and every week, you
Speaker 1: get some you know, treats about you know, stop making
Speaker 1: fun of them, blah blah blah blah. But I think
Speaker 1: overall people on one level they find him funny, but
Speaker 1: another level, you know, they find him really worrying, particularly
Speaker 1: because it breaks it. You know, we were supposed to
Speaker 1: have this special relationship with America, and one of the
Speaker 1: things we were told was after Brexit, will have great
Speaker 1: trade deals with America. That doesn't look that likely. Now
Speaker 1: it happened. I was like, don't, don't dunt. I thought, wow,
Speaker 1: I just felt that portended a specific outcome in the
Speaker 1: US and sort of Bill Clinton, by the way, and
Speaker 1: he warned a bunch of the Hillary people, and I
Speaker 1: thought they just didn't take it seriously. Yeah, the great
Speaker 1: thing about you is you can vote Trump out. We've
Speaker 1: done Brexit. Brexits happening, Brexits forever. There's no turning back. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, hope springs eternal. But no, they seem absolutely
Speaker 1: determined that this is going to happen. Do you think
Speaker 1: there ought to be a second referendum? You know what?
Speaker 1: Apparently I'm told that if there was, it would win again.
Speaker 1: Because now people feel that the EU is bullying US,
Speaker 1: so now there's more anti europe feeling rather than actually
Speaker 1: they're negotiating a deal and it turns out they're really
Speaker 1: good at it, and they used to negotiate deals for us.
Speaker 1: They don't, but yeah, they think they're bullying us. So
Speaker 1: I think breggsit would probably win again. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of parallels though, when you think about it, between
Speaker 1: what sort of the mood of the countries, both in
Speaker 1: the US and in Great Britain, and this anti intellectualism
Speaker 1: which I think has has surfaced in both countries, This
Speaker 1: this kind of distrust of experts. There's a book called
Speaker 1: The Death of Expertise. I know that the Education minister
Speaker 1: who is now the Minister of the Environment, I'm told
Speaker 1: not that I knew that, but someone Yeah, what did
Speaker 1: he say? We have too many of someone's bring up
Speaker 1: a point before the vast Basically experts are predicting that,
Speaker 1: you know, the economy or tanka da dada, and you go, well,
Speaker 1: I think this country has had enough of experts and
Speaker 1: that really really, that's that's your takeaway. But also in
Speaker 1: this country, and I'm sure it's the same in America,
Speaker 1: where the results of the election has been forgotten. So
Speaker 1: actually people who want to remain or an intellectual elite.
Speaker 1: There was forty eight percent of the population. If that's
Speaker 1: an intellectual elite, we're doing really well. And the same
Speaker 1: in America. You know, we did win the popular vote,
Speaker 1: but somehow that's been forgotten. Now it's as if you know,
Speaker 1: the great, you know, the great working man and woman
Speaker 1: of America voted for Trump, and it's like, no, some did,
Speaker 1: but an awful lot of vote of reelery. So I
Speaker 1: know we have to wrap. But just a couple more things.
Speaker 1: You said after splitting up with your boyfriend on the radio.
Speaker 1: You said you'd prefer to live alone for the rest
Speaker 1: of your life. Quote then live with towels that were
Speaker 1: folded incorrectly? Are you a neat freak? But honestly, when
Speaker 1: I when I do a book events and and that
Speaker 1: was one particular book when that was when I said that,
Speaker 1: it used to get this huge round of a bosom.
Speaker 1: People who basically hate cohabiting. People cohabit because they have
Speaker 1: to because it makes economic sense. I don't think anyone
Speaker 1: wants to live with any I disagree. I love you
Speaker 1: with my husband. People like things the way they like things. Well,
Speaker 1: that's true. You have to compromise, exceed there you go.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's like the toilet papers wrong, that
Speaker 1: hung the wrong way around. It's kind of the bread
Speaker 1: doesn't go there, you know. And also my problem is,
Speaker 1: of course I'm old. So the longer you leave it,
Speaker 1: the worst this gets. So are you interested in in
Speaker 1: romance at this point? Always interested? Here? Are you on Tinder? No? No?
Speaker 1: I was Grinder. No, I couldn't do Grinder because of
Speaker 1: you know, well just what it is, and that I
Speaker 1: worked for the BBC. But I felt I felt Tinder
Speaker 1: was socially acceptable. I could do Tinder, but no more.
Speaker 1: But no more. Okay, you've mentioned your books a couple
Speaker 1: of times, and we want to give you a plug
Speaker 1: because you have a new book coming out in the fall. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I've got a book that's still for
Speaker 1: sale in America called Holding. It's a novel published by
Speaker 1: a Tria I think a t R I A. But
Speaker 1: there's a new book we published here in the fall
Speaker 1: and hope someone in America will buy. It's called a Keeper,
Speaker 1: and and it's fiction. It's another novel. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: my this is my new thing. When I turned fifty,
Speaker 1: I decided right enough, I've told you know, I've always
Speaker 1: wanted to run a novel. And you know, you know
Speaker 1: those people who say I'd love to be able to
Speaker 1: play piano, I think there is a way you could
Speaker 1: do that. You could just learn and shoot up about it.
Speaker 1: So so that's that was my approach novel writing. I
Speaker 1: thought enough talking about it, do it. So this is
Speaker 1: my second one. I think you surprise people a bit
Speaker 1: with the first one, that it was very soulful and
Speaker 1: deep and thoughtful, and it was in some ways, you know,
Speaker 1: the antithesis of parts of your show. I would say,
Speaker 1: you know, it's certainly not the tele show at all.
Speaker 1: But I think that's you know, we've all got multifacet
Speaker 1: and people seem to want to put you in a box,
Speaker 1: and then you know, if you deviate from their expectations,
Speaker 1: they freak out. But then we do put ourselves in boxes,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, you know if buttically at work, I
Speaker 1: think you want people to treat you in a certain
Speaker 1: way and assume you're a certain person. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: And then at the weekend way and and and in closing,
Speaker 1: speaking of the weekend, I read this quote of yours
Speaker 1: and I really liked it, Graham, because I think it's
Speaker 1: good advice for everyone. You said, you're talking about relationships,
Speaker 1: and you said, I failed all my relationship exams, and yes,
Speaker 1: it's a different life, but I'm still living. And then
Speaker 1: you go on to say you're far better off finding
Speaker 1: ways to enjoy the life you're living than mourning the
Speaker 1: life you're not, which is a double whammy of unhappiness.
Speaker 1: And if you want someone to share your life, well,
Speaker 1: no one wants to share a miserable life. Look like
Speaker 1: you're having fun, and someone might want to join the
Speaker 1: parade a funeral, Cortege not so much. I'm so wise. Actually,
Speaker 1: I really like that because I think, you know, it's
Speaker 1: sort of a variation on the secret. You know, what
Speaker 1: you put out you'll get in return, And I think
Speaker 1: that's true. And I think happy people attract other happy people, right, Well,
Speaker 1: I I get, I get, you know, I do advice
Speaker 1: call them for the telegraphy, that's right, and agony uncle, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I get so many let us from those people,
Speaker 1: you know, being miserable and da da you know, I
Speaker 1: really I really want to meet somebody's like, who the
Speaker 1: hell wants to go out with you? You know you
Speaker 1: have no you know, you're just you're literally sitting in
Speaker 1: your house waiting to meet someone. That doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: a party anyone wants to go to. So yeah, get
Speaker 1: out live a bit. When you think about your future,
Speaker 1: do you want to keep doing this as long as possible?
Speaker 1: Do you see stopping the show and devoting your time
Speaker 1: to writing? And I'd like to I love my job.
Speaker 1: I like working. I suppose what I Ultimately I'd like
Speaker 1: to work less, but not stop. People I know who
Speaker 1: stopped working go a bit cucku because I just think
Speaker 1: gives you too much time in your hands. And they
Speaker 1: I don't think I could do that. The over analyze.
Speaker 1: I agree with that. Yeah, you know they about me,
Speaker 1: the obsessed, the obsessed about my nution and stupid things.
Speaker 1: And so I do want to keep working, but I
Speaker 1: would like to to write more. So it's about cutting back,
Speaker 1: not stopping. Well, I am so happy to meet you.
Speaker 1: This is so fun and not surprised seemingly you're you're
Speaker 1: pretty good at chatting. Well, I like chatting. He's had
Speaker 1: a little experience. Thank you Graham for coming on our podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. That does it for our first
Speaker 1: podcast episode from London will be back this month with
Speaker 1: more conversations from our trip across the Pond and are
Speaker 1: huge thanks to the BBC folks who helped bring us
Speaker 1: to the UK. That's Fiona Campbell, Jeremy Skeet and Katie Spending.
Speaker 1: Thanks also to the team at the BBC's Millbank Studios
Speaker 1: for recording today's episode and Tom in particular, Thank you Tom.
Speaker 1: I want to give a shout out to our team
Speaker 1: at Stitcher that's Gianna Palmer, Nora Richie and Jared O'Connell.
Speaker 1: And thank you as always to my team at Katie
Speaker 1: Kirk Media Beth Demaz, Emily Bena and Alison Bresnik. And
Speaker 1: one more reminder to please subscribe to our show. If
Speaker 1: you do, you'll never miss an episode. It also helps
Speaker 1: us to get the word out. Thanks also to everyone
Speaker 1: who has left us reviews on Apple Podcasts. It really
Speaker 1: helps us out. Remember we love hearing from you, especially
Speaker 1: Brian and it makes his day and he walks around
Speaker 1: with his chest a little puffier than usual, which is
Speaker 1: saying something that You can email us at comments at
Speaker 1: Current podcast dot com or call and leave a message
Speaker 1: at nine to four four six three seven operators are
Speaker 1: standing by. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: to you next week. Cheerio,