The Graham Norton Show
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The Jonathan Ross Show
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The 80s: Music's Greatest Decade?
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What was Sir Ian McKellen thinking? For a couple of minutes on a prime-time chat show, he started talking seriously — and held everyone mesmerised.
The 82-year-old, currently playing the doddery family retainer Firs in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, told The Graham Norton Show (BBC1) how he captured the octogenarian servant's gait, with one palsied hand and a crooked back.
It literally made him feel ancient, he said — and was a vivid contrast to the lithe, nervous gestures he used as the young Prince of Denmark in his previous play, Hamlet.
What was Sir Ian McKellen thinking? For a couple of minutes on a prime-time chat show, he started talking seriously — and held everyone mesmerised
He demonstrated the two modes, switching between them like a magician flipping a coin. Graham's guests, particularly fellow actors Jessie Buckley and Eddie Redmayne, were agog — perched on the edge of their seats.
That's not what the show is meant to be. Norton deftly steered it back, into the relentless flippancy we expect.
Brainless trivia is his stock-in-trade, and for the rest of the hour he made sure that's what we got.
Jessie forced a smile at a family video of herself as a child, writer Stephen Merchant mocked himself for being too tall, and a couple of million viewers wondered whether it was worth waiting up through this dross just to hear Elton John perform his new song at the end.
Wossy's idea of a searching question was to ask each celeb whether they'd fancy a bus ride into space on the Amazon rocket. Dame Joan Collins said: 'No, absolutely not.' Succession star Brian Cox also said: 'No, absolutely not'. Comedian Rob Beckett said: 'I'm up for it. If it was taking off near my house, I'd go
Everyone,
