Five minutes with… comedian and ITV’s Wheel of Fortune host Graham Norton
Yolanthe Fawehinmi chats to TV presenter Graham Norton about the longevity of his career and what makes Wheel of Fortune stand out as a game show.
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Your support makes all the difference.Sometimes Irish comedian and broadcaster Graham Norton forgets that not everyone can host a television show. It’s a lot harder than it looks.
So when young people ask the 61-year-old for career advice and assume he’ll have words of wisdom, he is always pleasantly surprised, since he stumbled into this industry off the back of a series of decisions.
But Norton, a five-time BAFTA TV Award winner for his British comedy chat show The Graham Norton Show — which first aired in 2007 — would encourage aspiring presenters to stay in the game and stay available.
Taking his own advice, Norton will be back to host the second series of ITV’s Wheel of Fortune, which includes a celebrity Christmas special. The epic game show is centred around a giant carnival wheel as the contestants spin to win for a life-changing cash prize. But the pressure is on as they pick a letter to solve the puzzle.
Ahead of its release, Norton discusses the most memorable moments, what makes an iconic game show work, and what viewers should expect this time around.
WHAT ARE THE THREE KEY INGREDIENTS FOR AN ICONIC GAME SHOW?
The game in the game show has to be something that hooks you, so you need to know what the solution to the game is. If it’s a guessing thing, you’ve got to be engaged in the guessing. So good guessing is the first one. It’s got to have a decent prize, I feel. So the stakes are stupidly high. And the third thing is it’s got to be do-able. It’s got to be achievable. I have many more than three. I think it’s got to be a combination of skill and luck, because if it’s just skill, the best person will just win. But actually, what’s fun is if there’s also some chance involved and suddenly, the really clever person doesn’t go home with the car, it’s just some random person who got really lucky.
WHY DO YOU THINK THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE GOT MILLIONS OF VIEWERS ON ITS FIRST SEASON? WHAT DO YOU THINK PEOPLE LOVE ABOUT IT?
It’s almost like the OG of these game shows. Weirdly, on January 4, when it airs, that is the 50th birthday of Wheel of Fortune. We could pretend that it’s all planned but it’s not, it’s just totally random. Somebody happened to notice that the very first episode in America went out 50 years ago on January 4. So it’s 50 years old. There’s a kind of cozy nostalgia to it. Even if people weren’t born when it was on in the UK last it’s like people were born knowing the format. So I think there was a kind of winter comfort. But also, I think they cast it really well. Like all the players, all the contestants were so appealing. I really felt myself rooting for them, it’s a lot of people, and I assumed I’d turn against some of them as the game went on. But actually, they were all lovely.
IS THERE A REAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE UK VERSION AND THE AMERICAN VERSION OF THE GAME SHOW?
The game is the game. But in America, they play it much faster, they’re half-hour episodes, and that’s with American ads. So I think it’s 20 minutes or something. And the other thing you notice is that the British players have thinking time. In America, there’s none of that, they’re just back on the wheel. Ryan Seacrest, who does it, doesn’t have to ask them anything. They know exactly what they’re doing next. it’s much more ingrained in them, whereas our players are still thinking a bit.
WERE THERE ANY STANDOUT MOMENTS FROM THE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL?
Richard E. Grant. He was not the luckiest player, but he found a very funny way of playing the game. It’s good. If you’ve ever wondered what Richard E. Grant would be like playing Wheel of Fortune, you’re about to find out, and it’s been worth the wait. He’s very good at it.
WHAT ARE YOU EXCITED ABOUT FOR SEASON TWO?
They are giving away money. It’s so lovely to give away proper, big amounts of money here. In the game, we just have fun to begin with. We’re doing the triple toss-ups, and it’s grand. You know, people win 500 quid here and there. Suddenly, at the end, they can have 12 to 15 grand, and then they’re going on to play for 50 grand. So they could have 60 or 70 grand if they win this thing. And suddenly, the fun is over. It’s deadly serious and I’m standing right beside them at the wheel, and you feel it, it’s so intense. One guy was literally shaking, just shaking, because even after he won the main game, he was just saying to me, “I’ve never had anything approaching this amount of money in my life“. And that was before he got to play for the 50 grand. So, I mean, and I was just saying to him, look, you really got to do some breathing here, because you’re going to keel over. And it was all good, but that’s absolutely the highlight it’s giving away money.
WHEN REFLECTING ON THE LONGEVITY OF YOUR CAREER, HOW HAVE YOU MANAGED TO FIND POCKETS OF JOY AND STAY RELEVANT?
Honestly, it’s not pockets of joy. It’s great, big pillowcases of joy. I started doing chat shows back in 1998 so a long time ago, and if someone had said to me in 1998 “Oh, by the way, enjoy this, because you’re going to be doing it for the next 25 years”, I would have thought they were crazy. But genuinely, when I get back into the studio every September, I’m genuinely looking forward to it and I do enjoy it. And I think that’s down to being unable to plan every week. You don’t know what you’re going to get. You know who the guests are, but you don’t know what the alchemy between those guests will be like. Will they like me? Will the audience like them? There are so many moving parts, it kind of keeps it interesting.
Wheel of Fortune returns to ITV on Saturday, January 4