The New Yorker:

The talk-show host discusses being a “comedy butler” to the stars, why he serves his guests a drink, and his new novel, “Frankie.”

By Anna Russell

The Delaunay, an upscale brasserie in London, sits on a crescent-shaped road called Aldwych, where the West End meets Fleet Street, the city’s historic home for newspapers. Situated at the intersection of entertainment and news, it is the kind of low-key-swank place where celebrities dine but are not disturbed. (You might spot someone famous, but please, let them eat their schnitzel in peace.) That’s good news for Graham Norton, the gregarious Irish chat-show host who is so well-known in the U.K. that the Guardian recently described him as “The Face Welcome in Every Home.” Indeed, he was stopped several times on his way to the restaurant. “I’ve been very famous today,” he said, seeming pleased, and slightly puzzled.

For nearly twenty years, Norton, the U.K.’s chatter-in-chief, has hosted “The Graham Norton Show,” a Friday-night talk show in which celebrities sit opposite him on a red couch and, well, chat. They do not talk politics; they do not philosophize. They chat. Norton likes to chat, and he’s very good at it. Just after arriving, dressed down in a purple plaid shirt, he was full of bonny small talk. He mentioned a piece I’d written and asked how I ended up in London. He wanted to make sure he was pronouncing my name correctly. He told an anecdote about the late architect David Collins, whose studio designed the Delaunay’s interiors. (“Every restaurant you went to, the lighting would drive him crazy!”) Fifteen minutes elapsed before I realized I had not asked him a single question about his new novel, “Frankie,” which was the reason for our meeting. “I always find this so weird,” he said, about being interviewed. “It’s quite an unnatural conversation. Just kind of, like, still talking! Like, if this was a date, it’s going badly. I’m talking too much.”

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