Graham Norton opens up about retiring as he shares dream plans away from hit BBC chat show

IT’S strange to think that Graham Norton suffers the same work insecurities as everyone else.

Surely Britain’s most prominent showbiz presenter – who hobnobs with the great and good on BBC1’s The Graham Norton Show and fronts Eurovision and Children in Need, among other shows – is inundated with high-profile TV offers? After all, he’s a national treasure!

In fact, Graham admits that even he is reluctant to turn down work, so much so that his long-held dream of travelling the world – which he promised himself that he’d do once his beloved dogs Bailey and Madge died (which they have) – hasn’t yet materialised.

“It’s hard, isn’t it?” begins Graham, 61, with a half-laugh. “Because, you know, while the work is there, I think that freelance thing never goes away. You never become so rich or so successful that you’re not slightly thinking, ‘Oh, there may be no more jobs.’ So you stay.

“And then, of course, by the time there aren’t any more jobs and you’ve got the time to go traveling, you’re thinking: ‘We can’t spend money on travelling, we’ll need this money for oat milk!’

“So in the back of my mind, I would like to do some travelling, while I’m still physically able to climb the side of a gentle mountain. But I have no actual concrete plans, so it’s just an unfulfilled desire.”

Graham isn’t too grand to admit that even at his exalted level, he still finds it validating to be sought after by TV bosses.

“This industry does worship at the altar of youth, so to still be wanted at an age when you imagined you’d be clinging to the wreckage of your career, it’s flattering,” he quips.

“I guess I’m still in the post-Covid thing of realising how great it is to have work and how great it is to be out of the house and doing things. I’m enjoying that.”

Graham is chatting to TV Mag over Zoom, because he’s at his coastal holiday home in West Cork, Ireland, not a million miles from where he grew up in Bandon.

Dressed down in a white T-shirt instead of a natty suit, he’s still on great form: funny, witty and insightful, a slightly toned down but recognisable version of his TV persona.

Graham spends long summers and Christmas in Ireland, these days accompanied by his husband of two years, Jono McLeod, a filmmaker.

Graham declines to talk about Jono and married life, but he does use “we” a lot when discussing what the pair get up to – over the summer they visited Graham’s home in New York City and the Edinburgh Festival.

And that oat milk comment? Jono is a vegan and Graham’s taught himself to cook vegan food for them both, although he’ll still eat meat and fish when out.

Being on holiday in Ireland also gives Graham a chance to fulfil familial duties by hosting his mother, Rhoda, who still lives in Bandon.

“Because my sister [Paula] does a lot of the to-ing and fro-ing during the year, during the summer, it’s my turn to do my bit,” explains Graham.

“My mum comes and stays here and I think she likes it. It’s like her holidays. It gets her out of the house into a different house. She’s 92. This weekend she was at her friend’s 100th birthday party with her other friend who’s 102. So I don’t know what they’re doing in West Cork, but maybe there’s something in the water.”

Now that Graham’s chat show is back in full flow, he’s returned to London.

The acclaimed, often roar-with-laughter-funny series has outlasted all the competition and remains the best place to see A-listers, who flock to his sofa to have a drink and a giggle, with Graham lobbing them funny questions and making cheeky ripostes. It remains TV’s best showbiz party.

And last series Graham earned a feather in his cap after landing the dream guest who’d featured highest on his wish list every year – Julia Roberts finally said ‘yes’.

“Getting her was a real moment for everyone on the show: for the booker, for the team,” he says. “Here was this big ‘get’. It was like the legendary catfish – we know it’s in the lake somewhere and we landed it. So that was exciting.

It can take years to reassure them that: ‘If you don’t want to talk about that subject, fine. I don’t care. This is not Celebrity Newsnight!’

Graham Norton

“But then what was great was that she absolutely didn’t disappoint. I realised: ‘Oh, you’re not Julia Roberts by accident. You’re Julia Roberts because you have something very special about you.’ And the audience loved her.”

So who’s next on Graham’s wish list?

“I say it to you and then it happens, so let’s say Brad Pitt,” he smiles drily. “He is top of our wish list now of people we haven’t had. The problem is that Brad doesn’t do any talk shows, never has.

“And there is an added thing in Britain. Because our media can be a bit wild for our American friends, they somehow think that I’m going to be part of that.

“It can take years to reassure them that: ‘If you don’t want to talk about that subject, fine. I don’t care. This is not Celebrity Newsnight!’ I just want us all to have a nice time and get to the end of the show.”

We discuss last series’ eyebrow-raising moments, such as Alan Cumming talking about scrotal ageing and Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslet in a lively discussion about the Shewee (a device that enables women to urinate standing up).

It’s ironic that Graham, the pioneer of outrageous and vulgar antics on his C4 chat show So Graham Norton, which ran from 1998 to 2002, now finds such discussions off-putting.

“I’m getting older now and sometimes I think: ‘Oh, dear. Really? Do we have to do this?!’” he chuckles. “Sometimes I think: ‘Why are we wasting our time? This is going to get cut out.’

“But actually, good old BBC, normally they don’t. So if Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslet want to talk about p***ing into some plastic cup, they’re allowed. These are Oscar winners!’”

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