He is being fitted for a wig, sitting on a high chair before a dressing table.
From this distance he appears to be completely naked. “Let’s take you over
to say hello,” the publicist suggests, and, taking a deep breath, I duly
follow in her wake, smiling and pointedly making eye contact with the
vividly painted and powdered television star in that via-the-mirror way in
which you communicate with hairdressers or taxi drivers. “Delighted,” says
Norton, turning round in preparation for climbing down from his perch.
(“Whatever you do, don’t look down,” I tell myself.) The scrape of high
heels on bare boards as he does so is at least partially reassuring, and a
subsequent glance floorwards finds him also to be wearing American Tan
tights over what appear to be incontinence pants. “A few more minutes and
then [here he shoots me a significant look] I’m all yours.”
To borrow the title of one of the comedian/presenter’s past Channel 4 chat
shows, that delivery is So Graham Norton. No one filters the same fruity mix
of sharp wit and innuendo through a persona of campness as he does. Like
Frankie Howerd and Kenneth Williams before him, he is a knowing commentator
on the antics of others while remaining non-sexual and, hence,
non-threatening himself. It’s a neat trick, one on which until recently he
built his whole career. Then came a multimillion-pound contract with the
BBC, not to titter over smut late at night with visiting celebs, but to
front primetime light entertainment fare such as How Do You Solve a
Problem Like Maria?, Any Dream Will Do and I’d Do Anything,
in which unknowns vied to be cast in West End shows. Newly mainstream as a
result, it’s therefore a surprise to find him venturing sequin-clad
into the world of theatre, starring as Albin in the musical La Cage aux
Folles.
This is not Norton’s first experience of cross-dressing. The Guinness
salesman’s son from Bandon, County Cork (a town of 5,000, its previous
best-known inhabitant was a Victorian novelist, Margaret Wolfe Hungerford,
who died of typhoid there in 1897), used to put on his sister’s clothes when
just a tiny tot, “because they were prettier”, he once explained. “I was
just trying to brighten up a dull wardrobe.” And then, in the early days of
his post-drama-school career as a stand-up, there was an appearance at the
Edinburgh Fringe in a one-man show titled The Mother Teresa of Calcutta
Grand Farewell Tour. “But that was just me and a few tea towels,” he
says. “I’ve never before done actual drag and it’s quite a shock, I can tell
you. You look at yourself as the slap goes on and you think, ‘It’s me. It’s
me. It’s still me.’ Then comes a tipping point – the lips? The wig? – and
suddenly it’s, ‘Oh my God! Who is that?’ ”
It was the experience of working on those search-for-a-star BBC TV shows that
softened Norton up to the idea and made him decide, “Actually, musical
theatre isn’t as freaky as I thought. You work with people who are entirely
normal in every other respect but who also perform in that world and you
find yourself thinking, ‘Maybe I could do it too…’ ” His first step was to
begin vocal training with a renowned coach, Mary Hammond: “Let’s name and
shame her, ’cos it’s her fault too if I bomb.” Then the casting director
David Grindrod asked what kind of production Norton would be interested in
being considered for. “And there was only one, this one. I’d been along to
see it at the Chocolate Factory with Douglas Hodge as Albin and like
everyone had absolutely loved it – the reviews have been amazing. When I
said it, I had no idea a West End transfer was on the cards.” Kismet, in
other words.
La Cage aux Folles is a warm-hearted, uplifting, gently educative farce
originally published in 1973 by the French writer Jean Poiret and later
developed into a trilogy of French-Italian films, a stage musical and, in
1996 and under the title The Birdcage, a Hollywood vehicle for Robin
Williams. It tells of a gay couple, Georges, the owner of a nightclub
showcasing drag acts, and Albin, its star attraction, and all that befalls
them when Georges’s son from a one-night stand brings his fiancée’s
conservative parents to visit.
“The role of Albin [which Norton will assume in January] is a showcase
for a fun, camp extrovert, and while Graham is many things, chief among them
are certainly fun, camp and extrovert,” says producer David Babani, who has
seen the show transfer from the acclaimed Menier Chocolate Factory, South
London, to the Playhouse Theatre in the West End. “He’s absolutely perfect.
I genuinely can’t wait to see his performance.”
When Norton presents himself for interview at the photo studio wearing a
T-shirt, trainers and jeans, his face newly scrubbed, I remark how thrilled
the company appears to be that he has come on board. In response, he rolls
his eyes theatrically. “Oh, they’re all thrilled now,” he declaims, giving
the trademark glug-glug-glug Norton laugh, “but just wait until we start
rehearsals. I am almost literally s****ing myself. By the time opening night
comes round, there may be nothing almost about it. Luckily, I have my
special pants in case of mishap [in fact, he tells me that the passion
killers he was wearing earlier are special drag-artist ones, padded at the
cheek and hips to give a more womanly silhouette beneath a sequined gown]. I
spend most of my working life in a very comfortable, well-supported place
and this is so out of that zone. If I’m honest, it’s scaring the bejaysus
out of me.
“Truly, honestly, I have no ambition to inhabit this world permanently.
Theatregoers can relax, I promise. I’ll do this one thing and then I’ll p***
off again. And that’s if I even survive the run [he is contracted
initially for three months]. Everyone loves everything about the production
exactly as it is, and the last thing I want to do is come in and kill the
beautiful baby.”
None of which explains why La Cage so resonated with Norton that he was
prepared to risk a critical drubbing after Douglas Hodge received such
acclaim for his performance in the role. (“I can’t help but think that to
all those reviewers who’ve hated me for years on TV, I’m going to represent
a late Christmas present.”) To understand that, you need to be his
20-year-old self, an escapee from rural Ireland to a hippy commune in San
Francisco, struggling to define his identity, sexual and otherwise, and
seeing the show there on its first direct-from-Broadway national tour.
One of the four numbers that the character of Albin performs solo is I Am
What I Am. “Which these days is a hackneyed anthem drag queens and fag
hags everywhere sing at the drop of a hat. But back when I first heard it
all those years ago, it was incredibly moving, both in terms of where I was
in my own life and where gay culture was – a whole generation about to be
decimated by Aids. The idea that what people laugh at and deride you for is
also what makes you special is definitely something I can relate to. As a
kid, I was very much afraid of my own campness. In terms of self-acceptance
as a young man it was my biggest hurdle, and that’s why the song’s lyric and
attitude spoke to me so powerfully. Of course, age and experience alters
your perspective. Now, at 45, the number that gets me the most is The
Best of Times. Seize the moment! None of us knows how much longer we’ve
got.”
Norton says that as a self-consciously different child growing up in the
small-town Ireland of the Seventies, the only visible gay role models were
TV personalities like Larry Grayson and John Inman, “and you really, really
didn’t want to be that person”. And when in adult life he began to meet
actual examples from that heightened genre gay personae, he felt a similar
unease. “I mean, men who’ve not just wholly accepted it. Dear God, they’ve
lovingly embraced it. They’ve thrown petrol on the bonfire of their own
campness. You know, the constant eye-rolling, the calling everyone ‘she’?
And that puzzles me, too. I think, ‘What life choice was this for you? What
made you want to be this particular person?’ ” So, on a one to ten of camp,
where would he place himself? “Hmmn. I used to think I was an
eight-and-a-half, but now that I’ve stepped into this musical world I
realise I’m comparatively butch. Reviewers may even say I’m too manly to
convince in the role!”
Had he the choice, would Norton be a different man, perhaps one who is more
toned down and “straight-acting”? My use of that term from the homosexual
lexicon makes him snort with amusement. “So funny, some of the men who apply
it to themselves. You hear them say, ‘No one at work knows…’ Oh really? And
who is your employer? The Helen Keller Institute? No, I’d say I’m very happy
in my own skin these days. Again, I think it’s an age thing. There are very
few pros to getting older but that’s definitely one, the not longing to be
someone else. You look at young people still trying to ‘find’ themselves and
you think, ‘Sheesh, I’m so glad I’m not doing that any more.’ If I were to
wish to be anything, it’d be younger and prettier, as would almost anyone
else. I’d wish to be the sort of gay man I actually was 20 years ago but
didn’t ever realise at the time.”
