The afternoon rehearsal for Graham Norton's New York television show had barely begun before I was thrown out, which was strange since I was sitting next to the entertainer's business partner at So TV, Graham Stuart, who had invited me in as his guest.
The idea had been for me to get an impression of what the chat-show host was like behind the scenes. Norton was in his mufti, as opposed to one of his bad-taste TV suits, of low-slung jeans showing off his svelte new body, a sexy T-shirt and trainers. After having interviewed him, I'd say he is more insecure about his looks than any woman I've come across - which is a shame as he's quite cute enough, a bit like a bouncy version of the Warhol star, Joe Dellesandro.
The script just needed a final dusting: an uncontroversial Iraq joke - "Dolphins? Isn't that a little odd for a war in the desert?"; a news flash that Hugh Grant has announced that he's giving up acting ("I thought he had already") and an obligatory smutty joke about masturbation. Norton asked the floor manager whether an American audience would understand "wanking" "I learnt it today for the first time," she says. Quick as a flash, he replied: "Well, that's a lifetime wasted." "So naughty, so campy, so saucy", as the usually sober Wall Street Journal described So Graham Norton.
He had just got into running through his Oscars questions with the researcher who was "being" the actress Susan Sarandon, when a thunder-faced man from the front row bounded up the stairs to whisper something in my neighbour's ear. I heard the words "Get rid of her". Awkwardly, Graham Stuart, although creative producer, had been over-ruled by Jon Magnusson (son of Magnus), executive producer, who did not want a journalist observing the proceedings. And so we were forced to depart.
Poor Stuart began to bluster, to which I responded, "But didn't he say 'Get rid of her'" and he collapsed in mortified laughter. He begged me not to write about the incident - obviously realising how at odds with the relaxed, apparent spontaneity of the show such high-handed behaviour would look. But, as I pointed out to him, that's precisely what made it interesting. If part of Norton's appeal is that what you see is what you get, then what could there conceivably be to hide from a journalist's gaze? And, to be fair, as far as I know, Norton himself had raised no objections to me being there anyway.
Of course, while control-freakery is not part of Channel 4's remit, it is absolutely routine in Hollywood. Now that Norton is on our screens five nights a week, with his sights clearly set on the States, perhaps his burgeoning success means that he is increasingly less likely to be surrounded by cheery, down-to-earth individuals like himself.
There is definitely something sweet about Norton's manner; that combination of mischief and innocence abroad in the world of foolish mortals is not merely his schtick for the stage. Although innuendo is hard to avoid when you are around him - my question "Do you go down well in Sydney?" is greeted by an inevitable titter - mercifully he doesn't go in for endless wisecracks. He has often commented that he would find it alarming as well as draining, for himself as much as anyone else, were he as full-on off the screen as he is on it.
The idea that he may be irredeemably uncool does seem to exercise him a bit. He once said he hoped never to find himself described as the "class clown" by an old schoolmate, which suggests that he is sensitive to the suggestion that he might have been. Like other Norton fans - although less of him for me is definitely more - he first came to my attention as the hilariously gruesome happy-clappy priest in Father Ted, singing Pogues songs in the campervan long into the night. His reading of his youth-obsessed priest was that he was a touch on the pervy side, but that's not the way his Channel 4 bosses wanted him to play it. I think he has become more circumspect as his profile has grown, while still managing to be offensive about the celebrities on his hitlist: Celine Dion being his current top dog.
Even in the old days, which were not all that long ago (just turned 40, Norton was still waiting on tables in his early thirties), he was reluctant to dish the dirt on his more difficult interviewees. But he did apologise to his interviewers for having to be so discreet, on the grounds that if he dissed one of the powerful agents' clients he wouldn't be able to get anyone else from their stable.
Now, with the exception of Raquel Welch whom he once called "a grumpy old bitch" on air - "I did, and in fairness no one's come up to contradict me" - he can't remember any of his guests being tricky or even weird. I had been told by someone who worked on the programme that Bo Derek, for instance, didn't get it at all. "I think she was all right, though, we've had her twice." I read that Boy George got grumpy "Did he? I don't remember him getting grumpy." He says that some people "get quite silent and just wait for it to end because they don't like it", but he doesn't elaborate further.
I am by no means a Celine Dion fan - in fact, everything about her sets my teeth on edge - but by the end of Norton's sustained spiel against her in New York, "I read a headline in a British newspaper, Dog Has Facelift, and to my surprise it had nothing to do with Celine Dion, I expect she's at home relaxing in front of the fire, licking her balls" and so on, I actually began to feel sorry for her. It was too cruel, like witnessing a schoolboy bully attacking the playground misfit.
Norton says, most disingenuously, that "When I call her a dog, I'm not calling her ugly, I'm literally calling her a dog. She looks like a dog!"
This discovery came about from one of his shows' games, Stars in Your Pets' Eyes, in which audience members brought in their pets who allegedly looked like famous people: "There was an Afghan hound and we put a sort of glittery snood on its head and it looked soooooh like Celine Dion it was uncanny." I'm sorry, Graham, but it's just ridiculous for you to pretend that you're not being incredibly rude about her. "I like dogs!" he says. Now come on, if you adored Celine Dion "Oh, I don't adore Celine Dion." What precisely do you find so ghastly about her? "Erm. Nothing really. I think what she's done is quite clever, going to Las Vegas for three years. That's a very good idea - rather than trying to make albums and have hits and so on."
