Chapter 1: What is the main theme of Graham Norton's appearance?
and there are still tickets available at jamesacaster.com. I'm looking at you, Glasgow, Belfast. Oh, there was somewhere else. Just please go on the website and buy tickets, please, jamesacaster.com.
Welcome to the Off Menu Podcast, taking the dough of conversation, forming it into the balls of humour, baking it in the oven of chat and covering it in the garlic butter of friendship, James. Dough balls, garlic dough balls.
That is it, Gamble. My name is James Acaster. Together we only drink Mestron every single week. We invite in a guest and ask them a favour.
Chapter 2: How does Graham Norton describe his new show 'The Neighbourhood'?
Ever start a main course or side dish and drink? Not in that order. And this week our guest is... Graham Norton. The king. National trej. International trej. International trej. Absolutely love Graham Norton. I mean, you know, growing up watching him do stand-up. Yes. Popping in Father Ted. Father Ted. Obviously his iconic chat show.
What?
What's that? How are you speaking? Fuffa Ted. Yeah. Love Graham Norton. Yeah, he's amazing.
Chapter 3: What unique dining experiences does Graham Norton share?
I'm a bit intimidated talking to someone who's so good at interviewing. Yeah.
And we're interviewing him. I would normally, but I just think he's so friendly, isn't he? Hopefully, he doesn't tear us apart for our interviewing skills, James.
Actually, it'd be a privilege. Yeah. If he tore us apart. Yeah. I'd love it. We deserve it. We deserve it. It's been a long time coming. I'm sure there are people listening to this podcast for many years because they love the guests. And when is someone going to pick these guys up on their interview? The technique is awful. And it might finally happen. It might finally get your wish. Yeah.
We love Graham Norton, but we will kick him out of the Dream Restaurant if he picks an ingredient which we deem to be unacceptable, the secret ingredient. And this week, the secret ingredient is... Golden Graham. His name's Graham. And he's golden.
Yeah, he's the golden boy. The golden boy of television. Yes. It'd be funny if we kicked Graham Norton out. It'd be really funny. It'd be really funny.
He says, hey, I know it's my name, but I would like Golden Grahams.
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Chapter 4: What is Graham's dream menu at the 'Dream Restaurant'?
Get out. Yeah, get out, mate. Because that's not something he has on his show. That's a format point he's not used to. As far as I'm aware, they don't have anything in place on his chat show where a guest could be kicked out if they say something.
Was that red chair tipped backwards and dunk him into some flames or something?
I've just realised we've ripped off Graham Norton. We're just doing a linguistic red chair. We've ripped it off. Yeah.
And we're chatting to people. And we're chatting to people, which he owns. Yeah. Well... You know, fair enough. We weren't to know when we started it out. It's gone well now. It's too late to turn back now.
Yeah. So if Graham does get kicked out, he won't have a chance to talk about his brand new show for ITV. The Neighbourhood. The Neighbourhood. It's a brand new reality competition format. Different families, different groups of people move to a neighbourhood. and it's like an elimination thing. I think, I mean, we're going to find out more about it from Graham, but it seems very interesting.
I've not heard about anything like that before.
It starts on the 24th of April, and it's on at 9pm on ITV1. I think that's the take home, that's the takeaway. And ITVX.
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Chapter 5: How does Graham Norton feel about his interviewing skills?
Oh yeah, of course. Let's not forget ITVX. And what about his podcast, Wanging On?
Wanging On with Maria McElhain, his friend Maria McElhain. They do a show together called Wanging On. It's a podcast. We do that. He's ripped us off.
Yeah, and they've been friends for 30 years. Yeah, so they've got something to say to each other, I'm sure. Which we're like, you know, I guess we've ripped that off in a way. Yeah, we're heading there. By being friends. Yes, we are friends. Friends for 18 years, maybe 17? Maybe. I don't know exactly what year our friendship started. It's weird if we knew that. Yeah. We're officially, this is it.
It's weird to do that at the beginning, isn't it? Yeah. Starting now.
Ha ha ha!
If you do that. Yeah. Like, starting now. Yeah. Benito? Can we be friends?
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Chapter 6: What are Graham Norton's thoughts on the evolution of television?
Yeah? Alright, starting now. Not yet. We're not starting yet. This is the Off Menu Menu of Graham Norton. Welcome, Graham, to the Dream Restaurant. Thank you very much. Welcome, Graham Norton, to the Dream Restaurant. We've been expecting you for some time. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Very high energy, but you're very high energy on your show. Kind of, yeah.
You're high energy when you need to be, and then you can sit back and you switch up the energy.
I think people think I'm very busy. They'd be amazed how much time I sit staring at walls, picking my nose in a low energy way.
It's very exciting for us. I think, like, I mean, we're not... We've never claimed to be the best in the biz when it comes to interviewing anyway. We would never do that. But every now and again, we get to interview people who themselves interview people.
Which is weird, right? It is. It is. It's a bit meta that, you know, pop will eat itself.
Yeah. It's like... if we stick to food, a chef cooking for a chef. Yes. But this is like two trainee chefs cooking for the master.
I don't know about that, but it's very nice of you to say, but I've been doing it a long time, but I still, you know, but the thing that keeps you interested, I think, in this thing, whatever this dynamic is, is that you never quite know what you're going to get.
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Chapter 7: How does Graham Norton view the impact of celebrity culture?
You never... You know, you could be all prepared. You can see them on other shows. You can listen to them on podcasts. But once they're in the chair opposite you, it's still kind of an unknown quantity. Do you remember who surprised you the most that you've interviewed? Loads of people have surprised me.
Back in the day when I was really clueless, like some of the big Hollywood actors, you kind of think, oh, they're going to be so boring and serious. And then, you know, Dustin Coffman came on. He was like a clown. Yeah. He just told dick jokes and he was just brilliant. Yeah.
Was that back in the day with the Channel 4 show when you were doing all of... That was like, in our house, we had to watch that because it was when Big Brother was on and you were doing the monologues at the top about Big Brother.
Yeah.
And he came on and did a sketch where he was pretending to be someone from Big Brother, right?
He dressed up as various characters from Big Brother. And it was either season one or season two of Big Brother was when people were blowing everyone's minds. And for those kids to get out of that house...
Yeah.
I find out that Dustin Hoffman had been playing them.
And I remember the specific one because it was such a big... I was like, it blew me away when it was the... I think he was called Johnny. He was a fireman. He was a fireman, definitely. From County Durham. I remember this moment very well. And he came out and he came on your show and you showed him a video of Dustin Hoffman pretending to be him in the diary room.
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Chapter 8: What humorous anecdotes does Graham share about his career?
Normally it's over by the time that happens. But I remember we were having dinner after doing the show and we were in the Oxo Tower and it was a beautiful night and we were sat on that little terrace looking out over London and London studios were right next door and it really felt like we were at the heart of everything that was going on. It was exciting at the time.
That's nice. Well, I think we have a new show that is going to do that. The Neighbourhood.
Oh, this old dog is learning some new tricks.
LAUGHTER
Yes, there is a new show called The Neighborhoods. Yeah, who knows? Maybe we'll be coming back. Yeah, it's a big ITV format show. They're taking a really big swing on this thing. It's huge. It's absolutely massive. It wasn't Durham. It was somewhere else. Derbyshire is where we went. And... And they took over. It's kind of a holiday village and they took over the whole thing.
And it's these real pre-existing households. So some of them are kind of families. Some of them are like blended modern families. Some of them are housemates, like uni friends. And six of them come in and they compete for a quarter of a million. Wow. What's interesting is like from the minute they get there, you're only six households away from a quarter of a million.
You know, it's not like you're 22 people away from the prize. It's very close. So it's competitive straight away. Well, it's an odd thing. It's kind of half competitive and then half lovely because they all get on. It's... I'm probably not selling the show if I say it's wholesome, but it genuinely felt wholesome.
Because the sun is out, like we're doing these, the way they vote each other out is quite cute. They do these things called the removals, where each household puts a for sale sign outside the house they want to leave. And we're doing them and the sun is setting and they're literally a duck with her ducklings walking across the set.
It was a bit like a heron flying overhead. I think people want a bit of wholesome sometimes though, right? Especially, I think there's always like a reflective thing of how the world is versus what the TV you want is. And it's always the opposite, I think.
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