In short
Ruthie’s Table 4 with Graham Norton (chat-show host) about hosting, food as comfort/performance, and Norton’s path from Ireland to acting and comedy, including his San Francisco commune experience.
Guests
Graham Norton (broadcaster, author, storyteller; grew up in Ireland; later became a talk-show host; discussed his parents, dropping out of university, J1 visa trip to San Francisco, and starting stand-up/acting in London). Ruthie (host; vegan now; writes novels; runs “Ruthie’s Table 4”; discusses cooking, writing, and hosting philosophy).
Key claims
Great hosting requires genuinely liking people and understanding they have stories; audiences and timing create an “alchemy” that can make the same show/meal feel different; clear facts reduce division (news segment); difficult guests are easier when not interviewing one-on-one; preparation (research notes, mapping connections, “guest” researchers) helps.
Notable examples
Guinness branding at home; commune chore wheel and “dreaded” cooking for 12–16; first restaurant work at “Vie de France”; Sarah Jessica Parker joke about audiences agreeing not to laugh; cab drivers’ “worst person” stories; Norton’s “script” rehearsal without guests.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOMel Brooks' 100th Birthday Celebration
0:39 to 1:07
Discussion about Mel Brooks and his impact on comedy.
“Mel Brooks is 100, and we have a present for you.”
Mel Brooks' 100th Birthday Celebration
1:12 to 1:28
Discussion about Mel Brooks and his impact on comedy.
“They love telling you the most miserable person they ever had.”
Meeting Graham Norton
1:28 to 2:55
Personal story about meeting Graham Norton and his graciousness.
“As we passed a table and spotted Graham Norton, we stopped.”
Growing Up in Ireland
2:55 to 3:46
Graham Norton's reflections on his upbringing and family dynamics.
“My mom was, I mean, she would have called herself a housewife now.”
Family Meals and Traditions
3:46 to 4:50
Exploration of family meal traditions and dynamics in Graham's household.
“He was, he started work in the brewery and then he became a service rep, which meant he traveled around an area.”
Life in a Hippie Commune
4:50 to 6:44
Graham shares his experiences living in a hippie commune in San Francisco.
“If mom was away for any, I can't remember why she would have been away.”
The Influence of the Commune
6:44 to 8:42
Discussion on how the commune experience influenced Graham's outlook on life.
“Now, even then, it was a delusional amount of money to go with.”
Work Experience in Restaurants
8:42 to 9:31
Graham talks about his early work experiences in restaurants.
“You know, I was so conservative with a small C in that way that young people can be.”
Pursuing Acting Dreams
9:31 to 14:01
Graham discusses his aspiration to become an actor and his journey toward it.
“I mean, there were communes and communes, you know, there were some that were very radical and very, and bringing up children all together and in a way, you know, but different ways.”
Early Career Reflections
14:01 to 16:50
Explore the initial challenges and experiences of pursuing a career in acting and stand-up.
“And so I kind of went, well, I'm going to pursue this dream till it hits a dead end.”
Show all 18 chapters
The Solitary Nature of Stand-Up
16:51 to 19:26
Discuss the solitary aspects of stand-up comedy versus collaborative environments like drama school.
“Doing stand-up to me seems such a solitary endeavor.”
The Unpredictability of Performance
19:27 to 21:58
Learn about the unpredictable nature of live performances and audience reactions.
“There is, there's something, there's always a weird, unnamed extra ingredient that none of us know what it is.”
Interview Dynamics
21:59 to 24:50
Understand the dynamics of interviewing guests and the challenges that arise.
“But I don't care why they're telling it so long as they're telling it.”
Preparation for Guests
24:51 to 28:00
Discover the preparation process for hosting guests on a talk show.
“And so if I know that a guest is nervous or if a guest asks to see me, then I'll go meet them before the show.”
Preparing for the Show
28:00 to 29:49
Learn how the team prepares for guest interviews, including mapping conversations.
“I then go in on Wednesday to the office, and we sit in the office all day, kind of mapping out how the conversation might go.”
The Art of Conversation
29:50 to 31:01
Discover the dynamics of hosting and how guests reveal themselves on the show.
“Let's ask them some new questions so that they're speaking in a bit than they're not.”
Cooking and Writing
31:39 to 34:21
Explore the relationship between cooking and writing, and the comforts of food.
“Though actually, recently, I've been let off the hook.”
Comfort Foods and Personal Favorites
34:22 to 36:28
Graham Norton shares his favorite comfort foods and memorable food experiences.
“But I feel like in your house, when you cook for people, people are never appreciative enough.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Graham Norton:This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. From game day crowds to memorable meals, Genius by Global Payments keeps your kitchen and floor perfectly in sync. Real-time menus, seamless updates, big league reliability for any business. That's Genius. I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the rage bait. It feels like it's trying to divide people. If we got clear facts, maybe we can calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News, reporting for America. Hi, everyone. Mel Brooks is 100, and we have a present for you.
0:54Graham Norton:On Thursday, a new edition of the podcast we recorded three years ago. Happy birthday, Mel. He's funny. He's brilliant. He's 100. Ruthie's Table 4, brought to you by Sky and Montclair. Cab drivers, when they always say, oh, the worst one I ever had was. They love telling you the most miserable person they ever had. And I always say, look, you don't know. you know you met them in that window of their life you don't know what happened before you don't know where they were going i totally agree now in fairness mostly i think they're right mostly when they say that name i go yeah i bet you
1:41many years ago my husband richard rogers and i were leaving danny myers restaurant maialino in New York City. As we passed a table and spotted Graham Norton, we stopped. Graham, I said, you're my hero. Without a second's hesitation, he looked up and he said, Richard is mine. That small moment told me everything I needed to know about the broadcaster, author, and storyteller I'd been watching for years. To be a truly great host, as Graham is every week on his television sofa, you have to understand and genuinely like people. It's the same for me in the River Cafe. There's no such thing as a difficult customer.
2:23Everybody has a story, and every table is a world. If life is about luck, then having Graham here with me today is part of the luck I have. After all, he is my hero.
2:36Graham Norton:Aw, that's very nice. Thank you very much. It now sounds very rude that I looked up at you and went, Richard's my Oh, yeah, right. Wait a minute. You are my hero. No, I wasn't a hero. When you were growing up in Ireland, let's start at the beginning. You know, tell me about your parents. My mom was, I mean, she would have called herself a housewife now. They're homemakers. So she did all the cooking and all the shopping. And a lot of stuff was made from scratch. Certainly, I think when I was very little, everything was sort of made from scratch. and she did baking, you know, all of that. If the oven was on, you couldn't just put one thing in it.
3:20Graham Norton:You had to fill it with stuff so you weren't wasting energy. Who is your sister? I had a sister. She was four years older than me. And it's interesting, that age gap, you know, now it's no age gap at all and I'm very close to my sister. But growing up, she was always slightly out of my orbit. Yeah. Because, you know, she would be going to a different school. Yeah, you were 12, she was 16. Yeah, that kind of thing. So. What were family meals like? Would you sit down? Did you? We would sit down and have them. My father, he worked for Guinness. Oh. And. What did he do? He was, he started work in the brewery and then he became a service rep, which meant he traveled around an area.
4:09Graham Norton:kind of fixing the kegs or the coolers, all that sort of stuff. And then it became a sales rep, which I don't really know what that was. It seemed to be just delivering free beer mats. And every glass in our house said something about Guinness on it. Every ashtray had something about Guinness on it. And even like with the towels, towels and Guinness on it. Branding. Did he ever cook? Was it a woman's world? It was a woman's world or a man's world where he didn't cook. He could make, he could scramble an egg or boil an egg. He'd make toast, things like that. If mom was away for any, I can't remember why she would have been away.
4:55Graham Norton:He could, we wouldn't have starved. Yeah. And did you ever go in the kitchen? A little bit. I would help my mom a bit. Really, when I started to cook, and this is kind of still my problem, is when I went to America, I lived in a hippie commune in San Francisco. Yeah, we have to discuss this. And everyone had, there was a chore wheel and everyone had a night to do the thing. So this 20-year-old from Ireland, which like 20 to me doesn't seem that young now. Yeah. I feel I was about... Baby. I felt I was 14. What made you go from, so you went to university and then you went straight to San Francisco?
5:37I dropped out of university.
5:38Graham Norton:And I kind of knew I was dropping out of university, but I didn't tell anyone. They have these amazing visas for, I don't know, just for Irish students. I feel it is just for Irish students, called J1 visas, where you can go and work in America. I got on a bus in New York, and the idea was I was going to go to LA, and I was going to meet a pen pal in LA. And because I didn't have a map, I was just following, I would just get leaflets in the bus stations where the lines went east to west, not north to south. So who knows what route I took. But anyway, the rambling bus ticket ran out in San Francisco.
6:18I see. Which was so lucky. That's lucky because you could have run out in like, you know, some state town in Utah.
6:24Graham Norton:Or if I'd got to L.A., it would have been terrible because I don't know how to drive. I, you know, I knew one person who lived, I think, out in Orange County, which I now realize is not L.A. This was 1983 I went, and I went with 200 pounds. Now, even then, it was a delusional amount of money to go with. I thought 50 pounds a week, so that 200 pounds would last me for a month, and I'd be able to get a job in that time. And, of course, the money was gone by the time I got to San Francisco. Oh, that's hence the commune? Or did you know about the commune? I know. I didn't know anything about the commune.
7:10Graham Norton:But I'd met someone in Cork who gave me some phone numbers, which was so nice of them. And, of course, I rang them. And this very nice woman said, oh, maybe I could find you a room. There's this commune. They have a hostel room. And so I stayed in the hostel room paying nightly. And then we got on. And they said, oh, do you want to live here? So I did it. It's funny because when I read that you've gone to San Francisco in the 80s to live in a commune, I thought he's about 20 years too late, but that's okay. You can still do it. The commune is still there. Because I always think about the commune as flower power.
7:49And when I was growing up, by then, I'm a lot older than you, but I think that we kind of divided into the political people who were fighting the war in Vietnam and who were very serious and trying to understand the new left and what it meant. And then there were the communes, you know, the people, the hippies who went to the communes. And so it was a big deal in the 60s. Very gentle, very beautiful that people would go with a very kind of strong idea and philosophy. But was that the kind of commune you were in? It was. It's really encouraging. Do you think there's still communes around? It was a continuation of that.
8:25Graham Norton:It was just off the Haight-Ashbury, you know, the panhandle that goes up to Golden Gate Park. Sure. And it was just there. And they were probably 40 and I was 20. Oh, really? So they had been there for 20 years? They'd been there a long time. Yeah. And it was, I loved it. It was just great. You know, I was so conservative with a small C in that way that young people can be. Sure. Because, you know, that's stupid. You know, that kind of thing. I was a bit like that. And they really kind of opened my eyes to different ways of looking at things, different ways of being and eating. Have you been back?
9:05Graham Norton:I have. I went back to some anniversary. There are now sort of hippie retirement communities. And it's so sweet because they get when there's a demonstration and the staff wheel them out to be in the demonstration. And they, you know, they tie their placards to wheelchairs and things. It's, you know, it's a life of, it's been a life of kind of activism and campaigning. I think it made a difference. I mean, there were communes and communes, you know, there were some that were very radical and very, and bringing up children all together and in a way, you know, but different ways.
9:46Graham Norton:When I was in my commune, there was a lady and she had a little daughter who lived in the commune. And, of course, she was rebelling against them. So she loved, yeah, the little kid, loved Barbie dolls. She wanted to get the Barbie dream house, the dune buggy. You know, she was obsessed by kind of bubblegum TV programs. And, you know, you could see the parents going, what's gone wrong here? I always say that about my kids who grew up in an architect's house of, you know, white walls. and, you know, that they were going to, when they grew up, they were going to have wallpaper, you know, or they were going to have decoration or kind of lots of stuff.
10:28So when you were in a commune, you're sharing, aren't you? And you had responsibilities. And did you say there was a kind of chart of who had to do what, when?
10:36Graham Norton:Yeah. So what was your, tell me about your... Well, you know, different things. You know, you had to, you know, there'd be a night you did washing up. There'd be a night you did something else. But then there was the dreaded night when you had to cook. Okay. And you're cooking for kind of, you know, 12, 16 people. Everyone has to say who's going to be in.
10:55Graham Norton:And it's – and I had no idea what I was doing. You know, I couldn't cook for myself. You didn't, so you didn't – Never mind 16 people. And then what was weird was when I went back for this reunion, whatever, the 40th, 50th reunion, a woman who I remembered, she came up to me and went oh we still cook your soup we we still make your soup and I think what the hell yeah I mean I don't I didn't remember it at all I think basically I would just make stock and chop up the potatoes very small and uh they'd cook in the stock probably a bit of onion bit of garlic onion garlic maybe some other vegetables maybe some carrots or no I wouldn't have sullied it with a colorful vegetable there might have been a leak very white leak okay there might have been And what else did you do?
11:46I worked in restaurants.
11:47Graham Norton:I started. Did you? That was the first time I worked in restaurants. Okay. Tell me about that. It was a, I think it was like a franchise restaurant, but I never saw another one. It was called Vie de France. Okay. And it was a kind of fast food French cafe on one side with all these kind of filled croissant with, you know, jam and stuff, fillings in them. And then on the other side, there was kind of a little French restaurant. It's funny. I have no recollection of the kitchen. I'm not sure there was a kitchen. Maybe not. I think maybe it was all salads that just got delivered. I can't remember.
12:19Graham Norton:There was soup. I remember there was soup. Because the soup, again, must have been delivered. Because often we would tell people what the soup was. And that was not what the soup was. And we would only discover later. But no one would have sent it back or complained. Because it turned out they just wanted soup. They didn't care. They didn't care what it was. They didn't care what it was.
12:46Graham Norton:From game day crowds to memorable meals, Genius by Global Payments keeps your kitchen and floor perfectly in sync. Real-time menus, seamless updates, big league reliability for any business. That's Genius. Was there any point you thought of staying in San Francisco? No. No, you always knew. I knew I had to come home. I knew my life couldn't start properly until I got back to where I understood how life worked. But that wasn't Ireland. Well, I went back to Ireland initially, and then I wanted to be an actor. So I applied to drama schools in London and got into Central. Did that acting ambition happen in San Francisco when you were a kid?
13:30Or did it something you always knew?
13:32Graham Norton:It was something I always wanted to do. But growing up in Ireland, I felt like I couldn't. Well, because I didn't know how you did it. How could I possibly go from sitting in a house in Bandon to being in a film? That just seemed impossible. And it was one of the great things about the hippie commune was the hippies were very, it's possible. You know, dreams are meant to be pursued to a certain point. That's a good commune. I like that better than no precepts. And so I kind of went, well, I'm going to pursue this dream till it hits a dead end. I was at drama school, but I was working in a restaurant.
14:13so oh you're working restaurant here as well when you came back yeah yeah which what was that like
14:18Graham Norton:um well i worked in one called smith's do you remember christina smith christina smith in cobble garden yeah yeah and rose gray rose very well i think rose worked there she did before she was she there when you were there she came in circle she came in as a consultant okay i remember that um because we had uh an irish chef called chef o'shea okay who was one of those very shouty chefs very terrifying but actually i think a lovely man because occasionally you'd see him smile or be twiggler you crack a joke or something would make him laugh and you kind of think oh actually you're a nice guy so uh he was the chef i don't know where they found him i i feel regional hotel.
15:05Graham Norton:I remember one day the special, the special which we served people was white fish of some kind in a white sauce and that was served with potato and rice. A very white plate. On a white plate. Whoa, that sounds like hospital food. Yeah, yeah. So I think Rose was brought in. Did you ever go to Greece or Italy or France. I did a little bit, but not much. Was that economic? That was totally economic, yeah. And also, it's that weird thing when you're waiting for a gig. Okay. You never want to be away. Yeah, interesting. So, you know, when I was waiting for an acting gig, I don't want to be away. And then when I started doing stand-up, you know, you just, if there was a gig, you did it.
15:54Graham Norton:And the thought of not being in town seemed like a form of insanity. Yeah. The stand-up and the acting, was that in drama school you got an agent? Got an agent. Isn't that a big deal when you have an agent? Yeah. No, it's the aim. Everyone, the idea is you leave drama school with an agent. And so I did that. Then nothing happened. I mean, crickets. I got a couple of jobs, but really nothing. And then I still wanted to kind of show off. So I started writing little comedy skits for myself. and I did it in, there's a gallery space above the Eagle Pub in Farrington. Yeah, I know that pub. So I said, oh, I'm going to do a show up there.
16:38Graham Norton:But sort of, you know, am I really? But then Mike Belbin, who ran the Eagle with David, he started telling people, oh, it's happened, like Graham's doing this. So suddenly I was forced to make it happen. That's a lot to do that on your own. I always look at stand-up. We did an interview with Pete Davidson, you know, and he was describing doing stand-up in American shopping centers, you know, going in the early days of going into these just small little theaters or bars where you would stand on the stage and people would either fall asleep or go and get something to eat. Doing stand-up to me seems such a solitary endeavor.
17:20Does it feel like that to you? It is.
17:22Graham Norton:And it's kind of a shock after being at drama school, after being with people, working with people. But there is something sort of nice about being in control of your own destiny. I mean, certainly as a performer, what's really nice is that you can pick up the phone and get a gig. You're not constantly sitting there waiting for the thing to happen. And also, I've talked to some comics who feel like this and some that don't. But there's a thing about dying on stage as a comic. I find it so much harder to watch someone die on stage than to die on stage. Tell me about that. So watching a comic, I think, watching a comic not get laughs is one of the most excruciating things in the world.
18:14Graham Norton:I just can't. I just can't. whereas when it's happened to me there's a kind of an odd out of body experience what is it like? I mean it's not pleasant don't get me wrong and you know there's a bit of hope you kind of think oh maybe I can turn this around and I'll try this and you might get a little chuckle on something or you talk to someone in the audience and that goes well and you think oh maybe, maybe and then no, no it's flatlining again Sarah Jessica Parker said to me I asked her about doing comedy in a play, and she said, sometimes I think, Ruthie, did they all call each other before they came to the play and agree not to laugh?
18:57Because it's almost as if that audience has decided not to laugh, whereas the night before, the same play. And it happens in a river cafe. I can tell. I used to be able to come home one night and say, that was a great night. Everybody had the sea bass and people liked it. And they took the same thing pretty much with the same thing. And it was like laughing.
19:17Graham Norton:It's because, and I think that's what keeps all these sorts of jobs constantly interesting, is that there is an alchemy. There is, there's something, there's always a weird, unnamed extra ingredient that none of us know what it is. So some nights that kitchen will sing and the dining room is just, everyone is just having the loveliest night. and it might be the weather but it's not as simple as that and it's the same you know on the chat show we often have the same ingredients you know we'll often have the same guest no they'll be in a different combination but a guest who was brilliantly funny before we're thinking oh great they're on oh we don't need to worry about them nothing and whether that's the audience whether it's them whether it's a combination of who they're on with.
20:15An argument on the way to the theater. They got lost. I always think, what happened to the person before they arrived?
20:21Graham Norton:I always say that to cab drivers, when they always say, oh, the worst one I ever had was. They love telling you the most miserable person they ever had. And I always kind of like, you don't know. You know, you met them in that window of their life. You don't know what happened before. You don't know where they were going. I totally agree. Now, in fairness, mostly I think they're right. Mostly. When they say that name, I go, yeah, I betcha. Yeah, you betcha. So do you have kind of not techniques, but do you have ways of navigating the difficult person? Or do you? I mean, I think one of the things that makes the chat show on TV easier is that I'm not interviewing people one-on-one.
21:07Yeah, interesting.
21:08Graham Norton:Because I think then this is everything. You know, it's all you. It's all me. And if one of us just drops the ball, then kind of, ooh. Whereas on the talk show, I've got other people. So, you know, if it is like getting blood out of a stone, I'll just go to the next stone and see what I can get out of them. And that, I think, helps. And also I think the other thing that helps is because they're not just talking to me. You know, I think a lot of those big stars are like, who's this guy? Well, they don't. They know exactly who you are. But I think if you're sat next to Dame Helen Mirren, you don't want to be a dick.
Read the full transcript
21:58Graham Norton:So you will tell your interesting story, but for her, not for me. But I don't care why they're telling it so long as they're telling it. I have a friend whose mother said that within 30 or 45 seconds of somebody coming into the house, no matter, somebody to fix a dishwasher, the princess of Greece or a relative who just arrived, they should have a drink in their hand because it means you're stopping whatever you're doing and focusing on them. And I think it's a good, you know, that kind of, and you give people, you have, you give people something, don't you? We offer them a drink. And I think that's kind of, again, offering something to somebody.
22:36Graham Norton:I just think, yes, I think it signals. Yeah. It signals to the audience that we think we might be going to have a nice time. Yeah. Did that take an effort on your – did you have to convince anybody to give people something to drink first? No, because we started – I mean, I started doing talk shows back in 1998. And so, you know, people could drink. And we were on Channel 4. Can anybody ever smoke? Did people smoke? You were never allowed to smoke. Okay. But we have had people try. What? Tell me the story. Oh, like Mickey Rourke, I remember. Oh, yeah. Like the minute he thought the camera wasn't on him, he'd be like, I'm like, no, people can see you.
23:17Graham Norton:It was like a child doing that because the teacher can't see me. Yeah. He's been the only one. We've had a couple of sneaky vapes. Yeah. Which I kind of pretend I didn't see. but you know clearly you do see um but uh yes smoking yeah you were never allowed to do i do love looking at the old do you ever watch on youtube the old clips of dick cavett i love dick cavett he was a great one so dick cavett has these uh shows that they're all out they're all online and you know the guests are wearing you know the women are wearing gloves and hats and they're smoking and they've got a cocktail i just love it i went on the jimmy fallon show I heard I was in New York I got there and there was a kind of team around me and then I sat in the green room and the producer came and he sat down with me and we did a kind of mock questions that Jimmy might ask and again I was quite tense then Jimmy came in and then suddenly it was fine because he kind of came in and he gave me this great hug and he went Ruthie I'm so lucky to have you and boy oh boy we can have a great time and then I got out there and I was fine oh good I was so fine it was like the best five minutes I've had and I think it was for me it was that preparation that's what I was going to ask you can you tell the guests who've prepared or do they not prepare or do you prepare how do you prepare it's well it it's really interesting for me to hear that what you're talking about because I forget that being a guest isn't easy it isn't because I'm there every week yeah and so I I just, you know, rock up.
24:54Graham Norton:And so if I know that a guest is nervous or if a guest asks to see me, then I'll go meet them before the show. And, you know, just, or if a guest, often if it's a guest that's never been on before, I'll go and see them before the show. But usually I just meet them backstage and on we go. And sometimes I'll be sitting in my chair and I'll look across and there might be a young actor and you just, oh, oh, you're terrified. and I'm so, I feel terrible. Yeah. Because, you know, it's like, oh no. Yeah. And you just want to stop the show and go. That's so sweet, Grant. That's so sweet of you. Well, but then you kind of.
25:32It is, no, it's really nice that you say that.
25:34Graham Norton:What I try to do is then ask them some things just so that they speak. Yeah, yeah. You know, so, because I think once you speak and the world doesn't end and, oh, actually that. That's okay. That's okay, I could do that. Yeah. Yeah, then it's fine. Then we have the guests who, and they are genuine, like they like the show, but they're terrible guests. And you can see them and go, this show is normally better than this. And I'm thinking, yeah, because you're on it. Yeah. I think that the other thing that is interesting for me in the house, when I have people over or we're sitting around, I find that the couch, almost architecturally or design-wise, the hardest place to converse because you're kind of side by side and you're looking at each other, but you're not able to have eye contact.
26:27But they have eye contact with you.
26:30Graham Norton:They've eye contact with me and eye contact with the audience. And also, I think really our couch is designed not to be comfortable. Oh, I see. So people have to sit up. They can't just kind of nod off what's going on. I think that's the death of performance is if people are too comfortable I do, yeah I was wondering about these chairs do you think these chairs are okay? I was wondering if we should have more couchy comfortable chairs I think you're at a table, these are perfect I quite like a table when people come over, actually we very rarely sit on the couch, we just go to the table right away, do you do that at home?
27:09Tables are better
27:10Graham Norton:we do a bit of sitting and then get to the table but rarely leave the table. Yeah, never leave the table. The idea of let's now go, that's old fashioned dinner parties. I don't go to those anymore where they would then have like coffee in the other room or something like that. Whereas we sit around the table till you can't see the tablecloth, it's so dirty. My mother loved a restaurant where you sat somewhere and had a drink and you were shown the menus and you ordered there. Yeah, and then you went in. when the starters were nearly ready, they'd bring you through to your table. I like that. That sounds kind of cool.
27:48Graham Norton:Well, that is kind of homey. It's quite a regional hotel, I think. Yeah, maybe. But back to the preparation. So basically, we taped the show on a Thursday, Thursday night. So on a Tuesday night, I get emailed all the research notes for the guests. I read those. I then go in on Wednesday to the office, and we sit in the office all day, kind of mapping out how the conversation might go. You know, most people will have a product they want to talk about. They might have a clip to show, they might have a book, they might have whatever it is. And then the things we're looking for are links. We're looking for - Connections.
28:28Graham Norton:Connections, things that might - Between the guests. Yeah, between the guests. So, you know, oh, so-and-so had a pet rabbit as a child. Oh, so did they did too. That's amazing. Whatever. So that kind of thing. So we map it all out that day. And then on the Thursday afternoon, we do a very strange thing, but it's really good fun. Is the researcher, each researcher who's responsible for that guest, plays the guest. So we do the show without the guests. So you might have some, you know, eight, six foot, eight person being Taylor Swift. Yeah, and they just have a sticker on saying Taylor. And we do the whole show.
29:11And actually, I mean, the bad thing is sometimes
29:14Graham Norton:the researcher is better than the guest. Oh yeah. Well, definitely, we better be careful here because you have a researcher.
29:23Graham Norton:And then it's a disappointment when the real person shows up. But what it does is it gives you a very good idea of when a guest has dropped out of the conversation or dear God, we talk to them forever about their love of woodworking. So then we sit in the office and we go through the, we call it a script, but it's not really a script, but we go through it, kind of hacking away. Let's get rid of those questions. Let's ask them some new questions so that they're speaking in a bit than they're not. And then you do the show. And like I was saying earlier, what I think keeps us all interested is you never know.
30:06Graham Norton:You can have the best guests. They could be all selling just great products. It could be sunny outside. It could be a full audience. And yet somehow that show will fall a bit flat. Yeah, I haven't seen one of those shows. I have to say that I have not seen that show. I see the shows and I watch them and I see the way you, as you say, you kind of navigate, you bring people in. They tell their stories. They laugh with each other. I think they're great with each other. I think that's often, I think often that is the most revealing thing because, you know, these people are all media trained. I'm never going to make them crack.
30:42Graham Norton:They're not going to suddenly start sobbing or going, yes, I killed a man when I was 17. But I think often what's revealing is how they react to other stories or to other people. And in those moments, you see the real person. Yes, you do. You actually go, oh, that's who they are. That's who you are, yeah.
31:08Graham Norton:As a restaurant genius, I know the experience starts long before the food hits the table. Genius by Global Payments makes it easy. Digital menus and price updates in real time. No reprints, no surprises. The kitchen and floor stay perfectly in sync. So every dish arrives exactly as it should. From game day crowds to memorable meals. Big League Reliability for any business. That's genius. And at home, do you cook? I do. How does your husband cook? I'm now vegan. I cook vegan. Though actually, recently, I've been let off the hook. And my husband is cooking because he's getting those ingredients delivered.
31:53Oh, good. That's a big, yeah, that's liberating. Yeah.
31:57Graham Norton:And actually, the food is delicious. Yeah. And it feels really fresh. it's fresh vegetables, it's fresh everything, and easy to follow recipes. So that's kind of been, that's transformed our life. When you're writing, do you eat in a different way? No. I drink a lot of coffee. You do? A lot of coffee. Do you have kind of set hours that you write? Do you say, I'm going to do 10 pages or two hours? I wish, no. It's so cool, these novels. Tell me about being a writer. That was a thing I'd always wanted to do. And then when I turned 50, I just thought, well, I either shut up about this and never mention it again or I do it.
32:40Graham Norton:So a publisher was sniffing around wanting me to do a memoir. Okay. So I said, okay, I'll do a memoir if you give me a two book deal and the second book's a novel. And bless them, they didn't know if I could write a novel, but they said yes. so I wrote this novel and it turned out I could write one and it did well enough that they wanted me to do another one so I'm currently working on number six and one of them is in a restaurant called Pomme, right? I read that tell me about that La Petite Pomme which is because it's a joke on the big apple so it's a French restaurant in Manhattan so it's called the little apple And that was based a little bit on Melange, where I worked here.
33:32Graham Norton:But I like, I've used restaurants a couple of times for my books, because I feel confident writing about them. And all that kind of, you know, I think the interesting thing about restaurants is that it's never finished. Yeah. Like the minute you've done all your mise en place, it gets destroyed. And the minute you do that, then it's gone again. The minute you polish a glass, it's dirty again. It's just, it's endless. I used to say that to Richard. You know, you build a building and it's up there, you know, forever. Forever and ever and ever. And I make something that I think is a work of art and it's eaten, you know, in five minutes, you know.
34:19But I think.
34:20Graham Norton:Also, people, maybe in a restaurant, because they're paying an education, maybe they are appreciative enough. But I feel like in your house, when you cook for people, people are never appreciative enough. They don't praise. Also, because they don't, it's like, even though they've cooked themselves, they have forgotten that that stupid thing that they kind of poked at, you were chopping for an hour. Yeah. Well, yeah. So if we think about food, and it's been such a joy to have you here, we think about food, we think about that it sustains hunger, you know, it stops hunger, that it is a way, as you say, of cooking to get praise from your friends if you enter, you know, if it's a performance.
35:03Or it can be exploration of going to San Francisco and, you know, being in a commune, or it can be working in a restaurant. It can be so many things, but it also is comfort. And so, Graham Norton, thank you for coming. If you would kind of reach for food for comfort, comfort from whatever you're going through and you don't want it, is there a food that you would reach for?
35:28Graham Norton:A baked potato. Yeah, that's quite good. It is pretty. There's something very comforting about it. What would you have with it? Would you have any just butter? Just butter, butter, salt. I do quite like tuna. Do you like that tuna in the baked potato? In the baked potato. I do quite like that. Last summer, there's a supermarket in West Cork called Super Value. And I was starving and my husband didn't get us sandwiches. And he brought me back tuna mayo in a freshly baked white roll with some slices of tomato in it. and it was I think the most delicious thing I've ever eaten. It was just so gorgeous.
36:14I love a tuna fish sandwich.
36:16Graham Norton:It was just something about the bread. And also it was a sunny day. But it was just delicious. So maybe that or a potato. Or a potato. Thank you. Thank you. It's so good to have you here. It's been lovely to be here. Gorgeous. There we got our praise. Validation. Ruthie's Table 4 was produced by Alex Bell, Robbie Hamilton and Zad Rogers with Andrew Sang and Bella Salini. This has been an Atomize production for iHeart Media.
36:53Graham Norton:So as a pizza genius, I know pizza shop orders come from, well, everywhere. With Genius by Global Payments, online orders actually sink straight into your kitchen. It's as simple as pie. And with digital menu boards, your specials, your prices, your brand, always front and center. It's one system, ready for game night crowds. Any night of the week, really. Big league reliability for any business. That's genius. This July 4th, come celebrate at America's Block Party, hosted by America 250. America's Block Party is a can't-miss 4th of July concert happening at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Experience music performances by major artists, patriotic tributes, and the kickoff to Giving Fourth, helping to make July 4th the largest day of giving in American history.
37:41Graham Norton:It's more than just fireworks. Join this landmark celebration and get your America's Block Party tickets now for$17.76 at America250.org. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.
From the publisher
To be a truly great host, as Graham Norton is every week on his television sofa, you have to understand and genuinely like people. It's the same for me at the River Café. There's no such thing as a difficult customer. Everybody has a story, and every table is a world.
Usually it's Graham asking the questions, but today, he's answering mine—about his early years in an American commune, his time working in restaurants, cooking, writing, and the art of hosting.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
