{"id":13246,"date":"2021-10-18T15:48:46","date_gmt":"2021-10-18T13:48:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/?p=13246"},"modified":"2021-10-18T15:48:49","modified_gmt":"2021-10-18T13:48:49","slug":"graham-norton-meets-sir-billy-connolly-sir-lenny-henry-dame-eileen-atkins-jodie-whittaker-tom-daley-coldplay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/blog\/2021\/10\/18\/graham-norton-meets-sir-billy-connolly-sir-lenny-henry-dame-eileen-atkins-jodie-whittaker-tom-daley-coldplay\/","title":{"rendered":"Graham Norton Meets Sir Billy Connolly, Sir Lenny Henry, Dame Eileen Atkins, Jodie Whittaker, Tom Daley, Coldplay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Billy Connolly talks about living with Parkinson\u2019s, Jodie Whittaker says she doesn\u2019t know who the new Doctor is, Eileen Atkins says she\u2019s too posh, Tom Daley says he\u2019s not ready to retire, Lenny Henry says he wishes he\u2019d had superpowers, and Chris Martin says he loves BTS with a great passion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Graham Norton Show continues Tuesday 26th<\/sup> October at 8pm on BBC Brit where Graham welcomes comedy legend Sir Billy Connolly<\/strong>, Doctor Who<\/em>\u2019s Jodie Whittaker<\/strong>, British Olympic champion diver Tom Daley<\/strong>, acting great Dame Eileen Atkins<\/strong>, comedian and writer Sir Lenny Henry<\/strong>, and the mighty Coldplay<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Billy, joining Graham from his home in Florida, and talking about his autobiography Windswept & Interesting<\/em>, reveals the process of putting pen to paper wasn\u2019t easy, \u201cI have lost the ability to write, and it breaks my heart as I used to love writing letters to people. My writing went down the Swanny and is totally illegible, so I had to find a way to record everything but then the recorder didn\u2019t understand my accent so it kept collapsing and my family would have to sort it \u2013 it was a club effort!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked about the title of the book, he says, \u201cThe rules of being \u2018windswept and interesting\u2019 are doing as you please and not taking lessons from anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talking about living with Parkinson\u2019s, he says, \u201cI\u2019m doing okay and have good days and bad days. It\u2019s creeping up on me and it never let\u2019s go. I walk like a drunk man and have to have help. So, life is different, but it is good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jodie, starring in her final series of Doctor Who<\/em>, says, \u201cWe finished filming yesterday. Please don\u2019t go on about it because I will cry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quizzed about the storyline, she says, \u201cI\u2019m not allowed to tell you anything, but I can say the first episode is out on Halloween and it is a six-episode story arc \u2013 it\u2019s like a six-hour film and it is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked if she has filmed the regeneration scene and knows who the new Doctor is, Jodie says, \u201cThey are never going to tell me who it is. We filmed some scenes, but the new Doctor wasn\u2019t there. I wasn\u2019t there for Peter (Capaldi), and I only met him months later when I passed him in the street!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eileen, talking about her memoir Will She Do?<\/em>, says, \u201cI was five when the war started and someone had told my father that he looked like Adolf Hitler and strangely he played up to it with a moustache and slicked down hair. I thought it was true and was terribly worried about what would happen when he was exposed. But I also thought about what a good position we would be in if Germany won the war!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Explaining why, given her working class background, she only seems to play \u2018posh\u2019 roles, Eileen says, \u201cMy mother wanted me to play a leading role in Panto but realised I wouldn\u2019t get that with my accent, so she paid someone to teach me to speak \u2018properly.\u2019 When Upstairs, Downstairs<\/em> (a series she co-created) came back I begged to be the cook, but they said I was too posh!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom, showing off his gold Olympic medal and some of his knitting, says, \u201cIt\u2019s strange because people used to stop me in the street to talk about diving but now all they want to know about is my knitting!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talking about his memoir Coming Up for Air<\/em>, he says, \u201cIt was interesting to look back over 20 years \u2013 the 14-year-old Tom is very different to now. It\u2019s almost like therapy going back and putting your life on paper.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked if, now he has won gold, he will retire, he says, \u201cI always said I would keep going until I got an Olympic gold medal, or my body gave up on me. Now that I\u2019ve got my gold medal and I\u2019ve taken a break I miss it and I don\u2019t want to close that door. I don\u2019t want to rush back, but I don\u2019t want to say I am retiring and then do a comeback \u2013 I don\u2019t want to be like a Steps reunion!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lenny, talking about his first young adult novel, The Boy With Wings<\/em>, says, \u201cIt was my Lockdown project and good fun to write. It\u2019s a sort of superhero origins story \u2013 basically I opened my head and poured out everything I remembered about comics. There is a lot of me in the book \u2013 I was bullied at school, and I wish I had those superpowers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked if the book is part of a bigger plan, he says, \u201cThere more books to come. I enjoyed it so much there\u2019s going to be more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coldplay perform My Universe<\/em> live in the studio, with a rather star-struck Jodie joining them on stage before Chris joins Graham for a chat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked about collaborating with BTS, Chris says, \u201cIt started as a classic social media rumour that I thought would never work but the idea sat in my head for a while and the song just appeared out of nowhere. It seems like a weird fit but works and it makes me happy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talking more about working with the Korean band, he says, \u201cThey are like our little brothers, I love them with a great passion, and we had the best time. It was so much fun doing it with them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And finally, Graham pulls the lever on more foolhardy audience members brave enough to sit in The Big Red Chair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Graham Norton Show, BBC Brit, Tuesday 26<\/strong>th<\/strong><\/sup> October<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming up: (2<\/strong>nd<\/strong><\/sup> November) Graham\u2019s guests include <\/strong>Eddie Redmayne, Jessie Buckley, Stephen Merchant, Motsi Mabuse, Elton John and Charlie Puth.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Billy Connolly talks about living with Parkinson\u2019s, Jodie Whittaker says she doesn\u2019t know who the new Doctor is, Eileen Atkins says she\u2019s too posh, Tom Daley says he\u2019s not ready to retire, Lenny Henry says he wishes he\u2019d had superpowers, and Chris Martin says he loves BTS with a great passion The Graham Norton Show… Continue reading Graham Norton Meets Sir Billy Connolly, Sir Lenny Henry, Dame Eileen Atkins, Jodie Whittaker, Tom Daley, Coldplay<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[193],"class_list":["post-13246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-television","tag-bbc-brit","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}