Smash hit

We are talking at a moment when Britain’s cultural landscape has been altered (in the short term at least) by the fallout from the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross Radio 2 debacle. Is he friendly with the two? Does he think they were at fault? “I know them but it’s not as if I have their numbers in my phone. I haven’t spoken to them about it. Listen, when you’re working at that end of the comedy spectrum, which I am a lot of the time, things are sometimes going to go wrong. I’ve done an awful lot of prank phone calls myself so yes, I do think, ‘There but for the grace of God…’ But I’m lucky enough to have always had producers around me who’ve protected me from myself. After the event, it’s all too easy to say, ‘What on earth were they thinking of?’ The whole point is they weren’t thinking. They were just in their zone, doing what makes them so brilliant, only this time it went wrong.”

At this point, I describe my experience of interviewing by telephone the out actor John Barrowman. I found him to be funny and engaging but also unexpectedly and explicitly sexual in some of his replies to innocent questions. Shortly afterwards, I saw him interviewed on TV by Ross and he was similarly entertainingly ribald, at which point it occurred to me that as a gay man you can get away with such behaviour when you are still young and pretty, but that there may come a time when to attempt it puts you in danger of appearing slightly… “Creepy?” For want of a better word, yes. So has Norton’s move towards a more family-friendly image been prompted by concerns of what is age-appropriate? He pantomimes deep consideration of the question. “Channel 4 is a place for young people and I felt I was getting a bit long in the tooth.

“My chat show [these days to be seen on BBC Two] is still silly, but it’s a slightly more grown-up version of silly than before.” So no more live link-ups to niche performers in the US who expel ping-pong balls from their orifices? “We wouldn’t do that now, no. Just wouldn’t [if I recall correctly, Lulu, a guest on the show in question, appeared pretty gobsmacked that they would back then]. Hopefully what we do is think, ‘Well, we’re getting a bit bored with this kind of stuff, so let’s stop before the audience gets bored with it too…’ Humour evolves. I meet people who tell me they’ve grown up watching my show. They were 12 or 13 when it started. Now they’re in their twenties and what makes them laugh is different.” Yet throughout all of this, and despite his constant nudging at the boundaries of good taste, Norton himself has escaped tabloid invasion or censure. How? Why?

“The thing is, the paparazzi are quite lazy. They’re not sitting outside every club or restaurant in town. You know where they’re going to be. So clandestine dinners at the Ivy? Hello? If you’re having an affair, why would you go there? If you’re going to roll around in the gutter with your knickers on your head, make sure it’s not when you emerge from somewhere that had photographers outside when you went in!” So is he saying that managing to live under the tabloid radar is simply a matter of him choosing unfashionable venues in or outside of which to behave badly? “No. It’s my not doing the kind of things you need to do to maintain the press’s interest. I’m not going to date a footballer or a pop star. It’s just never gonna happen.” Would he like to? “I don’t think I would,” is the prim reply. “Listen, I just don’t think there’s a public interest in my private life. I have nothing to hide. I’m a very open book.”

The cuttings files reveal the details of only two major relationships in the time since he came to fame, both with younger American men. Currently Norton lives with his two dogs in Wapping, East London, his time and attentions taken up with friends and with work. He describes the new year as looking to be “annoyingly busy”, with two seasons of his chat show to negotiate plus he and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s hosting of a televised search to find Britain’s representative in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest. But a recent (and still current at the time of writing) Wikipedia entry suggesting that he will be collaborating with Bill Oddie on a show titled Diving into the Deep Holes of Man is, he promises, erroneous. “Unless the BBC is about to pitch it to me and I haven’t yet been told. Just someone’s attempt at humour, I’d say. It made you laugh? Well, there you go. Their work is done.”

La Cage aux Folles is at the Playhouse Theatre (0870 0606631). The run with Graham Norton starts on January 19

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