How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S11, Ep1 How to Fail: Graham Norton

Episode Date: May 26, 2021

What better way to kick off a new season of interviews by interviewing one of the very best interviewers? INTIMIDATED, ME? Pahahahahaha.We open Season 11 of How To Fail with the peerless, hilarious and warm Graham Norton. Chat show host extraordinaire, bestselling author and beloved radio presenter, he joins me to talk about his failure to become an actor, to crack America and to throw a ball (no, really). We also talk about the art of the interview, his workaholic tendencies and, in an incredibly moving exchange, his near-death experience. Plus: what he learned from being a waiter and what happens when your lifelong dream *doesn't* come true. And I ask him whether he's jealous of James Corden.We laughed. We welled up. We chatted. What a gent he is. (Graham, that is, not James. I mean, I'm sure James is too, but...you know what I mean...ok I'm going now...byeeee!)*Graham Norton's latest novel, Home Stretch, is out now in paperback and available to order here.*My new novel, Magpie, is out on 2nd September. I'd love it if you felt like pre-ordering as it really helps authors. You can do that here.*How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. We love hearing from you! To contact us, email [e-mail]*Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayHow To Fail @howtofailpod Graham Norton @grahnort  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned

from failure. To open our new season, I thought I'd set myself the deeply intimidating task of interviewing one of the best interviewers of all time, because why not set myself a ludicrous challenge? On the plus side, if I fail, it will be on brand and I'll have got to spend an hour in the company of a charming man. So for this episode, it's my great delight to introduce the one and only Graham Norton. Graham grew up in County Cork before moving to London after university to try and make it as an actor. It was a comedy drag act as Mother Teresa, just let that image sink in for a moment, that led to many TV and radio appearances, including my personal favourite,

his unforgettable role as the singing priest, Noel Furlong, in Father Ted. His BAFTA-winning BBC chat show has been running since 2007, and Graham has welcomed a host of luminaries to his famous red sofa including Taylor Swift, Tom Cruise and Will Smith. The actor Matt Damon once claimed it was the best time he'd ever had on a talk show and he should know. One highly successful career might be enough for some but not for Graham who also hosts a weekend breakfast show on Virgin Radio and is a best-selling author, having penned two memoirs and three novels, the latest of which, Homestretch, was published last year. He has spoken in past interviews about his concerns that the older he gets, the more likely it might be that no one will want to employ him.

the more likely it might be that no one will want to employ him. It's a fear that so far has proved utterly unfounded. My whole life is a big wanting to be liked gene, he once said. So I find it fascinating when you meet someone and it's like, wow, you're in the public eye, but you don't care if people like you or not. Graham Norton, I like you very much and welcome to How to Fail. Thank you. I like you now after that lovely introduction. It is true though, isn't it? Anyone who steps in front of an audience,

there's something wrong with us. We are a vortex of need. I mean, that's weird that that's the affirmation we need. We need the affirmation of strangers. Well, I wanted to ask you actually whether you've always been a people pleaser. Is that something you remember from your youth, wanting to be liked? I remember wanting to be not not liked, if you know what I mean, in that I was a very fae little boy heading off to school. And if you don't want to be bullied all day, every day,

you've got to kind of navigate that. And I remember my mother, and I do remember this, how terrifying for her, you know, because I used to wear my sister's clothes. I mean, she must have read a really good parenting book back in the 70s, back in the 60s, whatever. I was born in the 60s. I was just thinking about school, but school would have been late 60s. So she must have read this great book, or maybe she's just a very sensible woman. But she said, look, she must have thought her little child, this weird freak child, is going off to school and is going to come back a bloody pulp. But she sat me down and said, look, when you go to school, if people try to tease you or whatever, don't react.

They're looking for a reaction. And it was very good advice in that I never did get bullied. And I was, you know, a weird little child. But I think that's what they want. They want you to cry, they want you to fight back or whatever. And I never did any of those things. And so I sort of got left alone, left to my own devices. That is great advice, by the way. Well done, your mom. Well, it's sort of good advice, but actually I think it leaves you a bit emotionally distant if you don't react to anything. I think you're supposed to react to things. But in primary school, with my little freak flag flying, it was very good advice.

Are you emotionally distant then still? I hope not. But at the same time, things tend not to crush me. Now, whether that's because I'm very sane and well-adjusted or whether I'm just cold and dead inside, I don't know. It's still a coping mechanism, I guess. So often when you're a people pleaser, and I would definitely identify myself as one, it's because you don't really like yourself. But do you think you like yourself? Oh, I mean, I wouldn't be my favourite person, you know, in that, well, in that I really am that jack of all trades, master of none. I do lots of things, but there are always people who do

everything I do better. The thing that I do is them all, which isn't really a skill at all. You know, I'm adequate at lots of things, whereas there are people out there who excel at one thing. As it happens, I prefer that life. I prefer kind of jumping from job to job because it keeps life interesting. And if I was that interested in any of these jobs, I might be better at them. I like the variety. Well, you're very, very modest, because I happen to think you're brilliant in lots of the areas that you do. But I do think we're bad in this country, and possibly in Ireland, at allowing famous people to do more than one thing. So in our heads, you're a chat show host, and therefore we can't quite compute that you're

also a really gifted novelist, which you are, because I loved Homestretch, as you know. Do you think there's something about our psyche that doesn't allow people to have this portfolio attitude to their lives? Clearly, people have allowed me to do it because they're published and people buy them. But I will always be, even if I stopped being a chat show host tomorrow and said, right, that's it. I'm never going to sit next to somebody again. And I am a novelist now. Look at me. I'm wearing corduroy.

That's the end of it. I would always be former chat show host. Graham Norton publishes another novel. Ex-chat show host. And that's just about the dominance of one of your roles. Lena Dunham has a great thing about, obviously, she's a writer and she's an actor, but she's also a very gifted artist. And she is exhibited in group shows. And I think she's had a couple of solo shows and she sells people collect her. But she doesn't call herself an artist. And it's because her father is an

artist. And her father said, no, you are a credible amateur, or you have a credible hobby. And I think for me, writing is my credible hobby. And in a way, that's kind of how I approach it. You know, when I talk to people who write for a living, if I talk to someone who is a novelist, their attitude to the work is different to mine. They prioritize their novel. I don't prioritize my novel. My novel fits into everything else. I write it when I can. Well, that's so interesting because I often think, as someone who writes novels myself, that when you have other jobs and other commitments and things that you need to do to pay the rent, you don't have the luxury of prevarication. So I,

touch wood, have never suffered from writer's block. But I think that's partly because I just don't have the time. Yes, no, I totally agree with you. I'm the same. If I have some days off and I've pegged them in for writing days, yeah, I better be writing something. It could be rubbish, but they need to be some words on the screen because, and I can delete them all, but I need to be writing. I don't have exactly what you say. I don't have the luxury of kind of going, no, nothing today. No, nothing tomorrow. No, words are happening. They may be the wrong words, they may be the right words, but words are happening. And I do think that's about having to fit it in. We can't tear our hair out and pretend that this is our life's work.

It's not. Our life's work is also happening tomorrow when we're doing a podcast or it's happening tomorrow when we're doing a radio show. It's happening all the time. Yeah. Do you genuinely worry about not being wanted anymore? I said in the introduction that that's something that you've admitted in the past, that the older you get, the more anxious you feel that you might not be employed. Is that a genuine fear? It's not really a fear. It's just a kind of an acceptance. You

know, I'm 58, which in my head sounds very like 60. And that's not hot. You know, that's not exciting. If you hire Graham Norton, that is not exciting because he's 58 and he's been around the block forever. So to be honest, that's one of the reasons why I went to Virgin at weekends, because I was so flattered that someone was trying to poach me. I was like, really? You think this is a good idea? Okay. You love me. You love me now. So yeah, off I went. And that was genuinely part of it, that it seemed so odd that a large organization thought it was a good idea to give me a bag of money and get me to show up. So you're right. It hasn't happened yet, the we don't want you, you're too old. But it's got to, hasn't it? You know, I just think that's the way of the world. Until I become 80 and then I'm an age higher, I look good in an end-of-year report. They can say, and we hire some very old people. Hobble forward, Graham Norton.

I think that thing you mentioned there about going to Virgin after being at Radio 2 for 10 years is a really interesting one because obviously this podcast is all about failure and what we can learn from it. And sometimes we need to learn when is the right time to quit. Now, I'm not implying that it was the right time for you to quit Radio 2 because it was a massive failure, which it absolutely wasn't. But do you think that you're good at knowing when to end something? I don't know. I've ended very little. I quit my Telegraph column. I got out of that. And I left Radio 2. Those are the only two things that I think I've stopped. Dale Winton had the mantra, don't quit the hit. This was when he was doing Supermarket Sweep,

then didn't listen to his own mantra. Meanwhile, I'm still plugging away. I don't get the hit because in a way, the chat show is what keeps everything else going. That gives me my profile. That's who I am. I'm chat show host Graham Norton. It's the tentpole of everything else. And then I also do some radio. I also write some novels.

But those are other jobs. The main job is that. So I always think and hope that I will leave the chat show before the audience does, you know, because you don't want to kind of be hanging on. I just think that's sort of grim. And I don't see where the joy is in that. If you're not getting the guests anymore, the audience isn't there, no one's interested. I just feel like that would make the job joyless and really hard. Because actually, it's very fun to do it now. It's exciting, there's a buzz about it, getting those big guests is great. And I enjoy myself when I'm there on the show. But if it felt like

really hard work, I can't see the pleasure in doing that. I'm going to get onto your failures in a minute, but I would love to ask you about the art of the interview. How you prepare for your interviews and what you think the key to it is. When I get asked this question, I always say that the key is listening. She says talking, talking over Graham. But what do you think? I'm still learning it. There's a thing where you want to put too much into a question. And actually, the question should never be the interesting thing. The answer should be the interesting thing. Early doors at Channel 4,

you know, I would have jokes in my question. The question would get a laugh. And it shouldn't. The guest should get the laugh. You're there every week. You know, if I'm a guest, then yeah, I should be getting some laughs or I should be saying a really interesting thing or I should be telling the anecdote. But if I end up doing that as the host, something's gone wrong. You know, we haven't used that guest very well, or maybe they're just a terrible guest, but which can happen. But that's, I think, the key thing. And I'm still learning it. You know, I do some podcasty things and I do the radio and the TV's the most produced. It's quite disciplined, the interviews on the chat,

although on a good night, it should look like a free for all. Actually, it's pretty structured, and I know where I'm going and I know what I'm asking. On other things, it's pretty structured. And I know where I'm going. And I know what I'm asking. On other things, it's less so. Sometimes I prefer the interviews because you go to unexpected places, you know, on something more flowing, like a podcast or a radio interview. But I do find I talk too much when there isn't a producer going, shut up, finish that question. That question's been going on for a minute and a half. I'm thinking about preparation and how important preparation is because on the one hand, obviously it's very important to know who you're talking to and to know where you want the

interview to go. And then there's also the sense that that free-flowing informality and being able to react to what someone says often comes when you're a bit less prepared. Do you find that, like what's the ideal amount of preparation for you? I suppose it changes according to the form. Yeah, I think that's the thing. It changes according to the form because on the TV, it has to be quite structured because I've got multiple guests at the same time. It's hard to go down a rabbit hole with someone when they just, you mentioned that they won a sword-soloing competition in 1967. Whereas on the radio, you stop everything.

And, you know, that's all we'll talk about now for the next six minutes. We'll just talk about sword swallowing because that's really interesting. The other things I thought we were going to talk about, who cares? And that's the other thing is that in the end, the interviews I do, it's not news night. I'm not there to hold someone to account or to uncover the truth about something. It's just chat. It should be entertaining. And I think entertaining is either interesting or funny. If it's not interesting or funny, then why is it on the radio? Why on the television? It's got to be one of those things. So yes, preparation is great.

And being underprepared is so terrifying. And it does happen where I'm talking to someone and they mention something really important about their book, or they mentioned really something important in their life. And you're thinking, should I know that? I don't know that. Do I know that? Yes, that's really scary. And then it kind of paralyzes you because you're scared to say anything because clearly there's a lot about this person you don't know. I mean, on the radio occasionally when guests used to come in, they would come in and I would be very surprised

because in my head I thought they were someone else. What? You know, like actors whose names are a bit similar to another actor's. In my head, I thought they were someone else. What? You know, like actors whose names are a bit similar to another actor's. In my head, I thought I was going to be talking to the guy from whatever. And then in comes the guy from, oh, you're from that show. Oh, oh, right. I hadn't actually thought how stressful it must be having multiple guests on the sofa and having to ensure that they get at least an equal shot at airtime.

Are there ever any sort of diva strops from the guests who are like, I didn't get enough time or I wanted to sit closest to Graham? I don't think the guests ever think that. I think the publicists sometimes think, oh, why isn't my client next to Graham? And being next to Graham, what the hell does that mean? It doesn't mean anything. But it's kind of the publicists have made this thing that kind of, oh, the biggest star

is next to Graham. And actually, sometimes someone who's not so famous will sit next to me because we feel they need a bit of handholding, sometimes literally a bit of handholding. And they'll feel quite secure if there's a big star on the other side of them and I'm on the chair. They'll feel more, you know, like attention's being paid to them. They won't get lost in the mix because they think that is the danger. If you've got some big personalities on a couch and then you've got someone who's a little quiet, a little reserved, but they are interesting, they've got things to say, the danger is they will just slip through the cracks on the sofa. I think on the night we give everyone a fair shot and then it's the edit, I'm afraid.

The edit decides who gets the airtime. So some weeks, some people more or less vanish. And I feel bad for them, but, you know, they didn't. Show business is a tough game, so it's their fault. Yeah, their life wasn't very interesting. I'm sorry. Could something interesting happen to you? They were neither interesting nor fault. Yeah, their life wasn't very interesting. I'm sorry. Could something interesting happen to you? They were neither interesting nor funny.

Yeah. The other ones I love are the guests who sit there thinking, they're the fans of the show and they're sitting there thinking, God, this show's really, normally really fun. When I watch this show, it's normally really fun. What's wrong with it tonight? And you're thinking, you're on it. That's what's wrong with it.

You're here ruining it. I love your chat show. It's the best one. Please never stop doing it. It is a delight. So thank you for indulging my nerdy questions there. Your first failure, and it's really interesting given what we've been talking about, because if this failure hadn't happened, you might never have become a chat show host. And your first failure is your failure to become an actor, which you describe as a huge regret, but it no longer is. So tell us about that. Well, it was my dream. You know, it's that thing. Kids are constantly told, don't give up on your dream, follow your dream. And that is good advice. And yet at the same time, you need to...

Make your dream realistic. Yes. Kind of like build your dream appropriately. So, yes, don't be delusional. And I think I was a bit delusional. I mean, having said that, I was encouraged in that I did well in the Dramatic Society University. And then I came to London and I got into Central School of Speech and Drama, which is kind of a posh drama school here. And I left and I got an agent. So I was doing all the things you were supposed to do until the bit where you're supposed to get a job. Then it all kind of fell apart because we were always told, oh, when you

go to a audition, when you go into an interview, you know, just be yourself, just be yourself. And so I thought I can do that. So I would go into interviews and be myself. And because I'm quite, I suppose, in that situation, because a people pleaser, I was trying to amuse them. I was trying to entertain them. I was trying to whatever them. My personality was too large. I was just a couple. Wait a minute. Why is he working in a shop? Why is that bloke? Why is he the guy who hands in the newspaper at the end of the day? Or why is he the servant who tells the doctor he's needed in the village? So I sort of made myself unemployable by just being myself in interviews. That's my story. I do think that's

part of it. Because I think if I'd got jobs, I would have been okay. I mean, when you go to see plays, and when you watch things on telly, I mean, some people are awful, just terrible. And you think, well, hang on, I'm not an actor, and you are. How does that make sense? But I'm not an actor. It took a few years, it took a couple of years for me to sort of really give up on it. And as you say, it was a regret. I used to say in interviews that no matter how successful I get at anything else, I will go to my grave a failed actor. And that's no longer true. In fact, we talked about this. We did an event at the Palladium. That was lockdown, but there were people there. We must have had a little tiny window. It was that weird time, yeah, in between two lockdowns where you were allowed to do socially distant shows and we just snuck that one in and it was a very special evening

graham oh no no god i loved it it was lovely to meet you but it was also just lovely to be at the palladium and see you know some odd people scattered around the audience spaced widely spaced in masks like we were doing a four o'clock show in Edinburgh. Oh dear, we're not a hit. So I basically failed as an actor. Then I thought, oh, I still want to show off. I still want that. So that's how I kind of drifted into comedy. And my drifting into comedy was to play characters,

like I did the Mother Tracer thing. And I would do kind of monologues as different characters in Edinburgh. But there was no one else really to do those things. So it wasn't stand-up. So that's why, in order to make a living, I started doing stand-up. And then that got me into bits of radio and then the chat show. But the eureka moment, or do you want to ask a question? Shall I stop?

No, no, you go ahead. No, no, no, please carry on talking. Sorry, that was just, it's so difficult doing these podcasts remotely because you can hear when I take a sharp inhale of breath, but you can't see my face. So yes, carry on talking. No, I thought you were yawning. No, no, you're okay. It was shock. I'm just so shocked at this anecdote. I've heard this story. Yeah, come on. So what happened was, I don't know, about 15 years ago, maybe, there was a production of Le Cage à Folle. It was at the chocolate factory, and they

wanted to bring it into the West End. Douglas Hodge, who was the lead, he only wanted to do it for three months in the West End or something. And they kind of, well, that's not commercially viable to bring it into for that. So we need someone to replace him. And I don't know how, but I was talking to a casting director about something. I don't know. They'd offered me something. And I, as a kid, had seen that musical in San Francisco in 1984. And I loved it. And I remember watching it because my dream was to be an actor.

And I remember watching it. When I'm old enough, if they revive this, I would love to play that part, the central part of Albin, the drag queen. So I said that to this guy. His eyes lit up thinking, well, great. We can get Graham Norton off the telly. He can take over from Douglas Hodge

so it can go into the West End. And that is what happened. I had to audition. I had to go to a singing teacher and I had to audition for the director and everything, but got it and did it. And I did it for four months and I didn't love it. And what was great was it made me absolutely appreciate my life as it is. And it made me realize that somewhere along the line, without

me noticing, my dream had changed and my dreams had come true. That I was trailing this kind of fake dream with me. I mean, it was four months and it was a lot of work. And when I say I didn't enjoy it, I didn't hate it. It just didn't push the buttons I thought it would. One, I wasn't as good as I thought I'd be. I got away with it some nights. Some nights I didn't even get away.

Some nights I was terrible. But it just wasn't what I imagined it would be. And that's as good as it gets. I was the lead of a West End musical. When I was at drama school, I just thought, oh, wow, imagine that. My name up in lights. There I am. And it wasn't what I wanted.

It wasn't what I thought it would be. But in that way, I was glad I did it. I'm really happy I did that and had that experience. Because as I say, I walked away sort of content. It settled so much of my psyche that I realized, oh, no, wait a minute, I am very happy. I didn't know I was as happy as I am. That's so fascinating, precisely because of what you said at the beginning about children being encouraged to follow their dreams. And you're so right that I love this image of you training a fake dream, a bit like a sort of sagging helium balloon behind you. Because so often, and I think I've had this as well, so often you have an ambition and you cultivate your life to pursue that ambition. And then the world tells you that you're actually really good at this other thing that you'd never considered. And it feels like a failure, even though it isn't. It's just

the sort of world conspiring to show you where your true talent lies. We had a really interesting thing where we had a reunion from drama school. I think it was a 25-year reunion. I don't think it was 30. I think it was a 25-year reunion. And people came from everywhere. And I think only one or two people didn't come. Everyone came to this.

And it was in a room above a pub just across the road from our drama school. And it was fascinating to meet everybody. Because when we were kids, when we were at drama school, we all had the same dream. We all had precisely the same dream. We all wanted to be stars. We all wanted, you know, our name up in lights. We wanted to be in film. We all shared that exact same dream. And when we came back, of course, we all measured success so differently. It was precisely what you said. It was like we went into the world and the world said, actually, no, this is the thing that is going to give you your pleasure. This is how you're going to measure success. So, you know, some people had started businesses. Some people were still actors and very successful. Some people were at theater companies. Some people were photographers. I mean, one woman, she was very, very ill. And for her,

just getting to that reunion was her success. And again, it was one of those little moments in life where you stop and take stock and things make sense to you in a way that they couldn't have had before. That's really beautiful. Hi, I'm Matt Lewis, historian and host of a new chapter of Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. Join me and world-leading experts every week as we explore the incredible real-life history that inspires the locations, the characters and the storylines of Assassin's Creed.

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Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. One of the things that really interests me about your time at Drama College is that I fished out from the recesses of the internet a very old interview that you'd given. And you were asked this question, who or what would you say has had the biggest influence on your career? And your answer is one of the best answers I've ever read. And you said, I suppose what would be working in restaurants as having the biggest influence on my career? Working in restaurants has made me what I am today, because of one, the work ethic, and two, the desperation to get out of them. So I'm guessing that you were

being a waiter at the time that you were waiting for the phone to ring and you were waiting to get actually parts. Actually being a waiter taught you an enormous amount. Can you tell us a bit about that? It's weird. I was only a waiter for about eight years, but it felt like forever, you know, because I was young. I remember when I started working in a restaurant in London, I was 20, maybe 21. And there was a guy there, and he was 27. And we all looked at him with such pity. You know, what terrible life choices has he made? And he's still here. Meanwhile, I'm now in my 30s. I'm still working in a restaurant. A friend of mine says that there shouldn't be national service, but everyone should have to work in restaurants for a year or two, because it changes you. I always kind of think if people are sitting at home thinking, oh, I can't get a job. You know, I did my whatever degree and I can't get a job. Don't be proud. Go work in a restaurant. Go work in a coffee bar. because actually, you pick up life skills that will be with you forever. The way you can read people, the way you can turn an experience around, the way you can

help people, or you can shut them down. It's far more complicated than you think, that kind of weird interaction, that dance between a waiter and a table or someone behind a bar and the customer. When I started, I was absolutely joy unleashed. I was so super keen. I was from Ireland. So I was like, it's Mrs. Doyle in Father Ted. So that was me as a waiter. I would go, and would you care for dessert? No, thank you. Are you sure? Are you sure? And it was just that I was doing really heavy selling. And I was just being polite because that's what you do. Because when you offer someone something nice, they always say no first.

And then you say, are you sure? And then they go, oh, all right, then we will. So I was really lovely and smiling. Cut to eight years later. I mean, I needed to get out before I killed somebody. It had gone dark. It had gone very dark behind the bar. So in the end, it wasn't so much a choice. I mean, I had to get out of restaurants because it wasn't doing me any good. I'd gone to a very dark place. I'm really sorry if you can hear a kind of rumbling noise, but

there's some tree surgery going on at the house opposite. So I don't know why they've decided to do it at 10.30 on a Wednesday morning, but I'm sorry if you could hear that. No, no, no. I could hear it. I was thinking, oh, are they cutting grass here? What are they doing here? Because I've invested in a little, it's called a vocal booth. And it's like a duvet covered telephone box. Because my house, I've bought a lot of things over the years, but apparently rugs and curtains aren't two of them. So when I try to do anything like this outside of my little vocal booth, it's very echoey. So that's good.

That noise is coming from your end. Yes, it's totally my fault. So your vocal booth is superb. I also was a waiter. And it's one of the hardest things I've ever done. It is so difficult to have to remember everything all at once and spend a whole day on your feet and be treated like absolute rubbish by 65% of the clientele. But I bet you're a very generous tipper now. Oh, absolutely. Very generous tipper now. And also do cash because I think restaurants have become much worse about

creaming off the tips and all that sort of stuff and not giving the service charge to people. I'm sure it's changed so much since, because when did I last do it? I mean, it was a long time ago. It's probably 25 years ago I last worked in a restaurant or a bar. So I'm sure that world has changed. But a good waiter can make your night and a bad waiter can ruin it. And that can be the same person. And it's often how you treat them is how that evening pans out. So if you are rude and offhand with your waiter when you sit down, you're ruining your own night.

People don't understand the control that person has over your evening. Not just about what you order or if it arrives on time, if it's hot, da-da-da. None of that. It's just the overall experience you're going to have will be much better if you're nice to that person. That person is the ambassador of the restaurant to your table. Don't piss them off because they won't be rude to you, but they won't be nice to you. It will be shut down. And it's weird too, did you find this when you're in restaurants? I don't know how long you did it for, but there were some tables and they willed it to go wrong for themselves. They sat down and you knew these people aren't going to have a good

time. These people are just going to, and they'd be a bit off with you. They'd be a bit, and then it was their food that got burnt or it was their drinks that got delivered to the wrong table or it was their bill that got printed out twice. It's really extraordinary.

And I don't believe really in any of that crap, but it is odd that you look at that table and you kind of think, you have a terrible time everywhere you go, don't you? Yes, you're putting the wrong energy into the world. Yeah, you're making it happen. I saw that so often.

There's no easy link to this, Graham, and I hope you don't mind my asking about it. But I am really interested in people who have had essentially near-death experiences. interested in people who have had essentially near-death experiences. And you've had one, because in 1988, you were mugged and stabbed on a street in London. Is this something that's painful to talk about? Or am I okay to ask you about it? I think I am okay about talking about it. I mean, if I start to sob, then my answer has changed. I mean, that's great for me. I mean, it makes a great podcast. So if you start to sob, we're all winners. No, but tell us about that because it's a very traumatic story. It was. And weirdly, I got offered counselling at the time and I didn't take it because at what age would I have been? 25 or something? I can't remember. It wasn't until I was writing my autobiography in the early

2000s when I told the story fully in that book. And it broke me. I mean, I realized I bottled all this stuff up. And I just remember crying and not being able to stop. And that's why I say, you know, I hope I'm okay talking about it because I think I am now. I think I've talked about it enough now. And I've sort of got past it. But it's weird. Before I wrote about it, if you'd asked me,

I would have said I was fine about it. And I made my peace with it. And I understood the good that had come from it in terms of my life. And so I turned it oddly into a positive in my life. But writing about it and going back to that night and actually living through it moment by moment, the trauma of that in retelling it was totally triggered and was awful, really awful. And you know that thing when you're not expecting it, when you're typing away and suddenly you're there and you're that kid lying on the pavement and just awful. And basically,

I was walking home from a party at drama school and I had a choice between getting some KFC or minicab. And I chose the KFC and walked from Swiss Cottage across Kilburn and over to Queen's Park. And somewhere along the line, these guys started following me. I didn't know. I was oblivious. By street light, I probably looked like a kind of yuppie businessman because I was wearing a kind of secondhand suit, you know, in that drama school way. So maybe they thought I had money and something, I don't know. And one of them went in front of me, turned around. I turned around to get away from him, and the other one was behind me. So they kind of sandwich you like that.

It's a classic technique, which I still look out for when I'm walking. And they kind of bashed me over the head, and they took my rucksack, and they emptied out on the ground, and, you know, they didn't they didn't get anything I think you know I doubt they even got a fiver if I'd had a fiver I'd have probably been in a minicab so they said lie there till we're gone so I said okay and I could hear their footsteps going away in the distance and I looked down I was lying on the ground I looked at my hand and just on my wrist, there were a couple of cuts and it was bleeding. And I was like, oh no, because I was living with this guy that I'd broken up with, but we were still sharing an apartment. And I just thought, oh God, I'm going to go home and he's going to be all wah, wah, wah and just, it's going to be terrible.

Anyway, I went to get up off the ground and I found myself sort of peeling myself off the ground. I thought, that's odd. And I looked down and I was soaked with blood and I lifted up my t-shirt and I had a hole in my chest. And you know that thing they do in Shakespeare where they go, you know, I've been run through. I always thought, oh, that's so corny because that's because they'd no special effects. They'd no blood capsules to indicate it. But in fact, that is what happens. Because your adrenaline is pumping so much, the first thing you do is go, oh, I've been stabbed because you genuinely are seeing it. You know, John Lennon's last words were, I've been shot. It's a weird disconnect between what your body's feeling and what you're seeing so I thought oh

and again you kind of think well I need help this is bad I need help so I started saying help help help rang some doorbells nothing and then an old couple came to the door and they were what is it and I was at the bottom of their garden path at the gate. And I did the thing, oh, I've been stabbed. And I mean, I was covered in blood at this point, but I still lifted up my t-shirt to show them the hole in my chest. Like I wasn't making it up. And then I went and curled up on their doormat and he must have gone to phone the police or the ambulance or whatever. It was such an odd thing. And you thought this is very kind of primal that I'm on this mat and I didn't know I was dying. I didn't figure that out till a little bit later in this

thing. And this was so not me. But I remember saying to the little old lady, will you hold my hand? And there was a flicker on her face of kind of, ooh, do I want to hold his hand? But she did, and she held out her hand, and I held her hand. And I think that's something so deep within us, and it motivates so much of our life that we don't want to die alone. I think so many of our decisions in our lives are about that. They really are about that. That having a partner, having children, all those

things. It's about not being alone when you die. It's about having someone to hold your hand. And then it was after that, I was kind of coming in out of consciousness because I was losing a lot of blood. But the police had arrived. I could hear the police. Somebody, I just remember, out of the fog came the phrase, we better wait for an ambulance because there'll be hell to pay if he cocks it in the back of the van. Oh, my gosh. And I thought, oh, so it's more serious than I thought. The other thing is that when your blood is seeping out of you, it is literally your life force.

So you get tired. And I think in death, there's a thing where you accept it. And I think it made me less fearful of death because being stabbed and bleeding out, that's up there with traumatic deaths. And it didn't feel that traumatic. It felt sleepy and it felt I could go away. I could have drifted away. And the other thing was that it put everything else in perspective. It gives you clarity like you wouldn't believe.

When I was in hospital for the first couple of days when I was still really in it, I felt like the world leaders could come to me and I could have brokered world peace. I could have done, you know, I just felt like I knew the importance of everything and the stupidity of things. It just gave you this incredible clarity, which went in about a day and a half. It was gone. But in that moment, it did. And some of it remained. So I think it was

a really good thing to go back to a third year of drama school with. You know, everyone was running around screaming and slamming doors about their casting in the final productions. And I was like, I'm alive. So really, I win. I may be playing a butler, but I'm a living butler. So that's good. That's good by me. And I think it kind of set me up for the rest of my life. And it gave me a really good attitude to risk, I think, to risk and to failure, I suppose, because no failure, you know, if you look at the worst case scenario, no failure compares to dying. no failure compares to dying. So for a 25-year-old bloke, I'm not recommending anybody do it, but for me, it was a very useful and powerful life lesson at that time. Graham, thank you so much. That was so extraordinary to hear. And I welled up, but you held it together magnificently.

I did. Holding the little old lady's hand does make me well up. But I think it's an important thing because I think it is so in us. It's weird because I didn't know that lady. I didn't know I was dying. But something in me wanted human contact. Something in me wanted to be held. And, you know, I do find that really moving. And not that it's about me,

but just about anybody, that that is so important to all of us. And it speaks about the year we've all been through and all of that, that people haven't been held. Thank you. There is now a clunky gear change as we move on to your second failure. Oh, yeah. Which is, I'm so glad you chose this. My failure to be able to throw a ball. Now, I was nervous. Well, no, I was nervous about, has anyone else chosen this? Well, it's so interesting. So no one else has chosen this, but in the first season, I was interviewed for the final episode. And one of my failures was my failure to be good at any kind of sport,

specifically tennis. So that's the closest we've come to it, but we've never had this specificity. Okay. Well, it's by virtue of the ball and it's all tied up with being a man and what being a man is. Because being a man is such a, it's really very simple. You know, men are very, very simple creatures. I think that's why dogs are man's best friend, because we share so much. Can I eat it? Can I fuck it? Boom, the end. Is that true, Graham?

I think men are much simpler than women. It's why I write about women. I like writing about women because I think women navigate the world in a much more nuanced way than men do. Men are bulls in china shops, I think. And obviously that's a huge generalization and lots of men will be listening to that kind of going, why, I'm very sensitive. Yes, you are. Aren't you great? But in general.

Is that true if you're a gay man? I think less so. I think because we're more in tune with our feminine side, I think. I think that's what it's about. But when you're a kid, you don't see that as a strength. You see it as a weakness because the other boys can throw balls and you can't. And it's emasculating. It is weirdly emasculating. And I talked to lots of gay men about this, and we all feel the same way about it, that it was this terrible thing that we couldn't throw a ball. And to the point where my two dogs, they never played ball because I would try and throw the ball for them, but they would just say, oh, for fuck's sake, where's it gone now?

fuck's sake, where's it gone now? Because often it would end up behind me or it would just go off in a weird ricochet to one side. So the dogs would just be like, oh, this is stupid. What is the point of playing ball with him? So I felt like I let them down. They thought they'd gone home with a man who could throw a tennis ball.

But no, no, sorry. Sorry, dogs. You'll have to find your fun somewhere else. And genuinely, I cannot tell you, in terms of my feelings of pride in successes and things like that, I was in my 40s when someone taught me how to skim a stone on the water. And I've never felt more like a man. I was so thrilled with myself that I was able to skim a stone on the water, having not been able to do it for all those years. So maybe there's hope. Maybe I could learn how to throw a ball. But now I sort of wear it as a badge

of pride that I'm so bad at it. And is it specifically throwing that you fail at? Can you catch? Oh, no. Because I feel like if a ball is heading towards me, it's something to be avoided. There's something innate in me where I kind of, I will put my hands up to stop it hitting me rather than, you know, I went to a school where rugby was the thing.

I mustn't get the ball because if I got the ball, two teams wanted to take it off me. So it was the thing. I mustn't get the ball because if I got the ball, two teams wanted to take it off me. So it was just terrible. So I would just avoid the ball at all costs. And I would, you know, stand on the sidelines or walk around. And no one minded. Well, presumably the teacher did, I don't know. But the guys on the team were like, well, we're better off with 10 players rather than if he's number 11. We really don't want him getting involved. So in the end, then in the end, and again, I don't quite know how I did this, but I just stopped going. I would just go to the library and read. And I remember,

you know, they used to do roundups of the kids who weren't doing PE and they'd look for us where we were hiding and they would come into the library and they would doing PE and they'd look for us where we were hiding and they would come into the library and they would see me and I would look at them. I would meet them eye to eye. I'd go, yeah, and they'd just walk out and leave me there. And so I didn't have to play sport for kind of the last four years. I only played it for about, I don't know, two, three years. And then I just went, no, not doing that. And they allowed me, I think because I was so bad. And I think they knew that I wasn't not doing it out of laziness. I'm just rubbish.

So they were probably quite glad that I bowed out. And is that something that's become a self-fulfilling prophecy? Do you like any sport now? Were you ever good at any sport? No and no. I mean, what's so weird is I exercise now and when gyms are open, I would go to a gym and things. And I think that is so weird to me that at 58, I am doing so much more exercise than I was when I was 13. I'm exactly the same, by the way. I had a hatred of sport and it was only as a fully fledged adult

that I realized I didn't like the team aspect of it. I wasn't very good at hand-eye coordination, but I was okay on my own in a gym and I was okay on my own in a spin class, which has the sheen of team sport because you're in a room with other people, but ultimately it's just you. Yes. I think what I like is activity. I like swimming. I like running. I like cycling. I like all these things. Where I fall down is when it goes back to failure.

If you're telling me that me doing this isn't enough, that somehow I've got to be the best at it, or I'm not the best at it, and now I'm a failure as a cyclist. I mean, if I cycle to work, well, I win. I win because I left my house on a bike and I showed up at work on a bike. And I got here quite quickly and it all worked for me. And I enjoyed it.

It was out in the fresh air. It was lovely. Whereas if it was a cycling race for my house to work, I would not like that. That would be horrible because I would get to work having already failed at something. Why have I done that to myself when I don't actually care? I don't care. But are you competitive? Well, I must be, but obviously I'm not good. So I've just taken myself out of as many situations as I can where there's a competitive element. My family, we do not play board games or anything. When friends come and stay, if they come for Christmas or anything,

and I've got a house in Ireland, it's in the country, big fires, wine, and you can see people thinking, well, this seems ideal for a board game. And my family are all like, what? Say what now? We're not good at them. We don't like them, which probably comes from my, yeah, probably both my parents, not good. And you don't like them because you are not good at them and therefore you lose. Because some people, I'm exactly the same as you, by the way, I think I'm deeply competitive. And I remove myself from situations that I'm not good at, so as not to face the ignominy of being told I'm rubbish. But some people don't care. Some people do stuff just

for the joy of doing it. And they don't care if they win, which seems completely batshit to me. Well, it was another thing, why bother? Why did you bother doing that? If you knew you were rubbish at it, why bother? If you're very bad at cross-country running, but you like running, well, go running. But you don't need to do it with all these other people, unless it's the shower element you're after. I don't know.

Before we get on to your third failure, you said earlier that you prefer to write women because they go around the world with more nuanced outlook. Do you prefer to spend time with women in real life? It's a bit of both. I think I used to spend more time with women. I think my friend balance has shifted, actually. I think when I was in my teens and 20s, mid-30s,

most of my friends were women. And now I'd say most of my friends are men. I don't know what that means. I don't know what that's about. It's because you can skim stones, Graham. Is it? Yes. Now, yes.

It's just a clarion call. Yeah. Masculinity. I've just attracted them to me now. Yes. Yeah, I don't know what that's about. And I'm very aware of it. I remember, you know,

I used to have a party. And I'd be thinking, oh, it's so weird. There's no gay men at this party. It's all women. And now I'd have a party, and it's all gay men. And I think, oh, there aren't very many women here. I don't think I did that deliberately. I think maybe I overcompensated by my not enough gay men here. And now there's just only gay men there. By 68, you'll have the perfect balance. Oh, yes. I'll be on it. Yeah. Your third failure is your failure to make it in America. Tell us about that. I mean, in that, that is a genuine, like, as in I failed. Because when you said your third failure,

I, for a moment there, I thought, what the hell is my third failure? What did I say? That is what I said. And it was because I think because it had the word failure, you were asking for failures. And my attempt to bring the show to America was a failure and quite a big, splashy public one. I've been going very well at Channel 4. So Graham Norton had been running for a few years. And then we did V. Graham Norton, which was the five nights a week version. And we did that for two years. After two years of that, I'd had enough. I really couldn't do it anymore. It was such hard work. But I felt if I stayed at Channel 4, going back to once a week felt exactly like that. It felt like going back. It felt like a retreat rather than moving forward.

So the BBC had been sniffing around for a few years, and I thought, you know what? I think now is the time to jump ship. So I signed with the BBC, but at the same time as all of that, America had come a-calling, because they do. If something's a hit in Britain, they kind of think, ooh, well, you know, that's already been tried and tested. I wonder if we can make some money out of that. So we had great fun. We got taken over to LA. We had a minibus. It was my agent,

my executive producer, my producer. We were there for a week, 10 days, staying in a fancy hotel and going out for posh dinners and things every day. And we got driven around in a minibus and a sort of beauty parade. We went to every broadcaster,

every kind of big cable station, and they told us why we'd be a great fit for them, how much they loved the show, proper America. And I think what was good was we were old enough to take it all with a pinch of salt that actually they weren't going to make a deal, but they felt they ought to meet us because what if they missed the boat? What if we were the next big thing? And they hadn't even taken the meeting.

Anyway, we did get some offers, and the one we went with was Comedy Central, and they went for it. They pumped loads of money into it, and a big advertising campaign. We were filming in New York. It was just great, to a point. What we hated was the kind of production by committee, because by that stage in Britain, the show was a hit.

We could kind of do what we wanted. People didn't question our decisions. Whereas suddenly, we were untested, untried, and people questioned all our decisions, every single thing. And I was protected from some of it, but not all of it. So we didn't enjoy that. And then we did the first show. And I mean, it went gangbusters the audience were like animals I mean it was just crazy it was just so raucous and mad and brilliant and we all loved it and I remember we went out for dinner afterwards and my agent was going like what are we going to tell the BBC what will what

would you tell the BBC because you know clearly this show is going to be a huge hit it we going to tell the BBC? What would you tell the BBC? Because, you know, clearly this show is going to be a huge hit. It's going to be extended. They're going to want more than the 13 episodes. This is it. This is, it's a breakout hit. Yeah, it wasn't. People who came to see the show enjoyed it very much. People at home chose not to watch it.

And it didn't bomb bomb, but it just kind of flatlined. And the people who'd commissioned us at Comedy Central had left. And so the people who joined had no interest in us. So we were just let go. We weren't cancelled. I mean, we were essentially, but they allowed the series to go on. But then we weren't recommissioned. And looking back, I think that should have been the end of my career. Because I then had nothing. You know, my American thing had failed. I'd signed to the BBC, but I had no show at the BBC. I had nothing to do at the BBC.

And so, yeah, that should have been where this story ended. Back in 2003, I think it was. But happily, it didn't. And what fascinates me is looking back is I don't remember panicking. I don't remember thinking, oh, no, what have I done? I put all my eggs in this American basket. And now somebody's dropped the basket and the eggs be broken. I remember being fine. I somehow thought everything was going to be all right, which, I mean, I must have been very drunk because that was not a sensible thing to be thinking. It was over at that stage.

So although I know it was a failure, I don't look back on it as a failure because I didn't really feel it at the time. A couple of things that I want to ask you about that. One is about the myth of American success. There's this idea that you can be big in Britain, but to be really successful, you have to break America. And I find it weird that we don't think to question that more, that it's sort of pitched as the next thing that you

have to do to prove your worth. But actually, you can just carry on being very successful in Britain, and that's okay. Where do you think that comes from? Well, I think it comes from what we grew up looking at. America is Hollywood. America is, you know, there, entertainment is an industry in a way that it isn't here. Working there, you realize what that means. In that it means that every meeting you go to have 12 people sitting around a table, and they all have a job. Whereas here, TV just seems like amateur dramatics in comparison. It's a nice lady in a cardigan going, oh, okay, yes, why not? Why don't we do that? Whereas there, it's so corporate. And I think that's pretty changing, because I think there are far more independents involved.

But at the same time, everyone has to take it more seriously in America because the amounts of money to be made and lost are so enormous. People have to care. And I think the number of people at the table is about sharing the failure, not sharing the success. Right. sharing the failure, not sharing the success. Right, yes. So if something bombs, not one person is carrying the can because Carol and John and Bobby and Rose, they were all at the meeting as well.

They all signed off on it. You can't fire us all. And I think that's what that's about. Whereas if it's a success, then it's the lead producer or something or the star of the show, they have the success and the suits have a little reflected glory. But I really think it's about covering their ass when it goes wrong, is all those people. And also, it all depends what you're doing. But you know, I think we treat Brits who've gone over there and been successful differently.

treat Brits who've gone over there and been successful differently. You know, Ricky Gervais is a different sort of star to us because he's had success there. Sacha Baron Cohen, a different sort of star because he's had success there. Whereas, you know, they were as big as they could possibly be in Britain. You couldn't be more successful than Sacha or Ricky in Britain, but now they are more successful. And that's just true. Do you regret it at all? Do you look at James Corden and seethe with resentment? Not at all, no, because I know what he's going through. I don't know how he's doing it.

I really don't know how he does that job. It must be so hard. I mean, the good thing for him is he's had some breakout hits. He's had Carpool Karaoke and things like that, that presumably have kept some of the executives off their back. But hopefully he's got great people around him. And I think he does. He's got somebody he's worked with forever.

And that'll be protecting James from some of the machinations and the kind of awful people you have to talk to and work with. But, you know, James, I must say, I'm sort of in awe that he's got the drive to do it because it seemed to me, I mean, I don't know what was going on in his life, but it seemed to me he was very successful. He was a successful actor

and he must be missing out on a lot of roles and a lot of opportunities having to do that show. So I don't quite know what his end game is, what he's doing it for, because presumably, you know, the more successful he is as a talk show host, the harder he's going to find it to be in films, in plays. It's a similar trajectory in a way to yours. You were an actor and then actually the world was like, no, you're an amazing chat show host. It's a very different trajectory. It's at a much higher level in that he was a successful actor. People knew he was an actor. The only person who knew I was an actor

was me. I did too. I loved you in Father Ted. But I also wanted to ask you because a very interesting point that you made about the show that you were doing when you were in the audience, it was great. And then there was a disconnect between that and how it was received. How do you deal with criticism or with negative reviews? I mean, they're never nice, but they are part of this industry. It's part of what happens. And you know, people don't like your show, they will tell you. No one in America was watching the show. So I really didn't really get any recognition for people in the street. But I remember I was buying groceries one night, and this woman was bagging the groceries.

And she went, you on that show? And I went, Oh, yes, yes, I am. And she went, I don't like it. I really liked her for that. It made me laugh. But, you know, criticism is built into this industry. It's a cruel industry. And that's from the minute you step in front of an audience, people aren't going to give you a standing ovation to be kind. People boo. People don't laugh.

People heckle. People walk out. It's an immediate thing that's going on. No one's going to give you a good review to be kind. No one's going to give you a job to be kind. Auditioning is the cruelest thing in the world. It's just awful because you have to take that personally because it is personal. Because the person they didn't want is you. They didn't want you. You know, reviews, I think, I read them. And if it's a good review, I'm kind of suspicious of a gushing review as much as a bad review.

And you think there's something else going on. The reviews I trust are the ones, I like this bit, but this could be better. I like those reviews which are kind of mixed. And they kind of go, yeah, he's good at this, but that was really horrible. Why does he continue to do this? And oftentimes they're right. And I think that is a good point. Well made.

I suppose that's what kind of made me all right about going into writing novels, because I was exposing myself to an entirely different level of criticism and reviews by doing that. Because I've had some very nice reviews, but I've had a couple of stinkers as well. And it really made me feel for poor little writers, writers who don't go in front of audiences, haven't been wearing shiny clothes and wanting people to look at them and laugh at them and clap at them. They've been very quiet and they've hidden away in a room. And now they've handed their book out into the world and, you know, they're blinking in the light.

For them to get a bad review must be awful. I think writers must feel the pain of a bad review much more than someone like me, who can kind of, you know, whatever it a bit. And are you one of those people who is capable of thinking, okay, what that reviewer is saying is a reflection of them? Is that how you do it? Yeah, no, I could certainly do that. or sometimes you'll read a bad review of something and it's not a bad review of what you've actually done it's a bad review in relation to what they wanted you to do often someone will do a bad review of the tv show because they want the tv show to be news night or they want the tv show to be life stories or something and well that's not what this is. This is just a knockabout chat show on a Friday night. I'm never going to go in depth. And if you're looking for that,

you've come to the wrong place. I think there are weeks when the chat show isn't good and you can say it failed. In terms of what we were aiming to do, we failed. You can't say we failed to be Newsnight because we weren't trying to be Newsnight. And I think that's where reviews often get bogged down because they don't like the thing rather than how well you are doing at being the thing, if you know what I mean. You don't criticize EastEnders because it's not line of duty. EastEnders is doing a very different job. So I think that is where bad reviews, I think, often go wrong, where actually you're looking at the wrong thing and you're holding us up to a standard that we don't hold ourselves to. Oh, Graham Norton, I could carry on talking to you for many hours. I will never want to give you a bad review. I think you're fantastic at everything that you do.

The tree surgery stopped now. I know, it stops. It's just so annoying. It was so loud, wasn't it? I'm so sorry about that. No, no, I'm so glad it was your end though. And I didn't even have a barking dog or anything. So I've done very well my end. Yeah. All right. No need to show off. But I just want to say, you know, you might never be able to throw a ball, but you have aced being a podcast guest and you've been so generous and funny and warm and clever and interesting. And I cannot thank you enough for coming on How To Fail. Oh, don't be mad. It's been an absolute pleasure wanging on about myself for some time. Thank you. Thank you very much. If only more people showed this deep interest in me.

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