Episode 13 The Graham Norton Show

Hey, everyone, it's the first show of 2016!

And, as my New Year's resolution,

I'm going to be taking part in Dry January.

Yeah. What?

It's dry white wine.

Let's start the show.

APPLAUSE

This programme contains some strong language

Oh, oh, oh! CHEERING

Hello, good evening, everybody.

Welcome, one. Welcome, all.

This is it, everyone. This is it.

It's 2016, it is 2016. Everyone have a good break?

-AUDIENCE, ENTHUSIASTICALLY:

-Yes!

-Some of you still on it.

We've got a great first show of the year for you.

Some great guests, including one

of the stars of the original Cold Feet,

which is coming back later this year. Did you know this?

Now, I loved Cold Feet and, apparently,

even the Queen, huge fan of Cold Feet.

Of course, you'll remember my guest in that infamous rose scene.

Hmm.

I wonder what happened to that rose.

Oh, Your Majesty! Let's get some guests on.

Later, we have music from James Bay.

But, first, the owner of that pert bottom,

he's been in some of the biggest British TV dramas of the last

two decades, Cold Feet, Murphy's Law and, of course,

The Missing. Now he's back in Stan Lee's Lucky Man,

lucky me, it's James Nesbitt.

APPLAUSE There he is. Hello, sir.

Lovely to see you, have a seat.

She's an actress, comedian, singer and writer with a Bafta,

Golden Globe and seven Emmys to her name.

Now, after 30 years, she's returning to the BBC

with a brand-new sketch show.

It's the fabulous Tracey Ullman, everybody.

APPLAUSE

Hello. It's like I'm welcoming you back on behalf of the nation.

And he's one of Britain's finest actors. He moved us

in The English Patient, made us laugh in The Grand Budapest Hotel

and terrified us as Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter films,

please welcome, for the first time to the show,

the great Ralph Fiennes, everybody.

APPLAUSE

Hello, sir, how are you? Very well.

Greet each other, greet each other.

That was just showbiz greeting, though.

You have said hello back there, right?

Yes, we have, we did it all again.

You didn't sit back there going, "Don't look at them.

"Keep it fresh, keep it fresh."

Do you know each other? Do you...? We do.

-Ralph and I do.

-I know you, yeah.

-Not in the biblical sense.

-No.

James, you were directed by Ralph.

I was directed by Ralph, I was beaten up by Ralph in the film,

a version of Shakespeare's Coriolanus, which was amazing.

I was very scared, actually.

I hadn't done Shakespeare in a long time.

-You were brilliant in it.

-Since I was at drama school with you, actually,

-that's how long ago it was.

-Wow! And how bad it was.

-Were you at drama school together?

-He was a bit older than me...

You'd never know it, all the same.

Yes, no, Ralph asked me to come.

And it was brilliant, actually, we had a laugh.

It is a new year and

a very happy New Year for one James Nesbitt because you were on

-the Honours list.

-I was.

-You are.

You're not struck off or anything.

-You're still on it, you're still on it.

-Depends how this show goes.

-What did you get?

-I got an OBE.

-Very good.

APPLAUSE

-Actually, yes, cheers to that.

-Any excuse.

Are your mum and dad both still around?

Well, my mum's not around, no. Dad was very pleased. Dad said,

"About bloody time," actually.

My friends, I think, were pleased.

One of them, Jason Ferguson, a very good friend of mine,

he said, "Order of the Bell End, about time."

It's exciting. It's a day out at the Palace for me and my girls.

Do you know who you're getting yet?

-You get different people, do you?

-There's a whole family of them.

-There is, isn't there? There's loads of them.

-I wasn't aware of that.

There's like a pack of cards.

Where are you going?

I think you go to the Palace, do you?

I don't know!

I'll probably get Edward.

I will now!

You'll probably go, "Oh, sh..."

Ralph, you haven't got anything yet?

-No.

-No, no. I feel like you should.

You are genuinely posh.

-He got one, he got one.

-It's all surface.

I'm not posh inside.

Tracey Ullman, I've a feeling, whatever chances you had...

-I ain't gettin' one!

-Yeah, you're really not getting one now.

No chance.

-No, because in the new show...

-Yeah.

-..you do a version of one of them.

-Yeah.

-Do you?

-Ha, "do you?"

Yes, Camilla.

Yes, there I am.

Isn't that good? Isn't that amazing?

I had a lovely time being her. I will present you with your, er...

CBE. I'll do it now. I'll do it. Would you like her to do it?

-I love being her.

-It's quite specific, how she is.

What have you done? When do you do her?

Within my show, which comes out next Monday...

It's a sketch show, we'll talk about it more. Yeah, yeah.

This is actually your bit, Ralph...

Don't shine the light there right now.

Erm, genius, genius make-ups and things. I'm various people.

She's a tough character, your Camilla.

-PLUMMY ACCENT:

-Yes, she vapes a lot and she's, you know,

dealing with horses a lot, she picks up the phone and it's Charles

and says, "Hello, sexy."

We like her. It's very affectionate, VERY affectionate(!)

I'm ain't going to get one of those things at the Palace.

-No, you're really not.

-No, no, we all knew that.

Tracey Ullman, is it odd that

your very first show in America

was the one that spawned The Simpsons?

-Yes.

-Did you... Are you a creator of The Simpsons?

I breast-fed the yellow people.

Yeah. Yes.

We wanted little cartoon segments, you know, as bumpers on the show.

There was this blue hair of Marge, I remember that specifically.

And then I was so busy doing all these parts

on the show they came and said,

"We need someone to record the voices, you know."

-AS MARGE:

-"OK, I'll do it."

This voice, so she was Marge.

Then Dan Castellaneta said...

-AS HOMER:

-"OK, I don't mind, what do you want me to be?"

So he was Homer.

And that was it, that very first week.

And then, who knew?

I knew it was big.

I think I went to Italy next summer for my holiday

and there was like Italian Simpsons a-bath foam.

-So anyway, yup, The Simpsons started on my show.

-Yes.

APPLAUSE

Now, Ralph Fiennes, how busy are you?!

We just enjoyed you in your last outing as M in Spectre.

You're sticking with that now.

-You're M forever. For a while, anyway.

-I've got one more I think

and then it's up to them whether they want me back.

They'll want you back, they will. They'll want you back!

That's like your dream job, I mean, you were a Bond geek.

I was a Bond geek when I was a teenager, yeah

Is it true you would do trivia quizzes on...?

I knew all the Bond books inside out. I can't answer

Mastermind questions now but I read them all least three times.

-Wow!

-I knew all about Kissy Suzuki and Solitaire

and Gala Brand and...Honeychile Rider and...

Presumably you wanted to be HIM, not M.

Yes...

Not to piss on your parade.

As a kid you weren't thinking, "Oh, one day I might be M."

-No, well, years go on...

-You're in it, be happy.

-You're in a franchise, great!

-I'm very happy.

Here's the thing, you are coming back to the stage,

and then it's all about you,

in The Master Builder. It's at the Old Vic, just round the corner here.

Previews on the 23rd of January, opening on the 3rd of February.

A glance, a cursory glance at this audience, and you can guess

-they know their Ibsen pretty well.

-They know their Ibsen inside out(!)

For the couple of them who don't know,

what's The Master Builder about?

-A master builder.

-I'm glad.

-Who's going through

-a midlife crisis.

-No!

-And into his life walks a young,

-23-year-old girl.

-Ka-ching.

-Ka-ching.

Bums on seats, here we go.

Who wants him to build a very tall, erect tower that goes

high, high, high into the sky

and this is a proposal that excites him a lot.

You don't need to be Freud.

I'm working with a fantastic young

Australian actress called Sarah Snook,

who plays the young girl. She is seriously a gifted lady.

-She inspires you.

-She does, she inspires me to build a spire.

Yes. See what we did there? All the way round.

Yes, very good. I suppose a lot of people...

I say a lot of people, me. ..would imagine that

when you get to the level of success you have achieved in films, there

would be a temptation to walk away from the heavy lifting of seven,

eight shows a week and the long stretch of that but, no,

you keep coming back to it.

Well, I love it. This is an amazing play, I believe.

I'm working with the great director Matthew Warchus,

who's fantastic and, for me, there's nothing that beats being in front

of an audience, and feeling the play evolve in front of them,

you tell them a story and every night it's different.

You go on a journey and it's not the same as filming.

Have you been in The Master Builder?

Yeah, I played The Master Builder at drama school.

How tall was your spire?

It drooped a wee bit, to tell the truth.

I hear that you've never had any complaints...

-That was the OBE.

-The bells make up for it.

No, I erm...

In fact, you should have seen it when we were at drama school.

I was in the year above you.

I probably did!

George Hall...

Yes, no, the PERFORMANCE!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

All the students were talking.

George Hall, who was the director, who was the head of Central,

his critique afterwards, he looked at me and said,

"Jimmy, you missed."

So it wasn't a great performance, I give.

So I hope you'll do better. I'm sure you'll do better.

"The reviews are in. Ralph Fiennes, you missed."

That is pretty great.

Was it in a Shakespeare play

where you had your costume... What do you call that thing?

What do they call it? A wardrobe malfunction.

I had a major wardrobe malfunction.

It was in a Shakespeare play, a comedy called Love's Labours Lost,

and I played a character

called Berowne who has an amazing speech about love.

Very romantic speech, full of ardour.

It's off the back of a very high-comedic farcical scene

and suddenly it stops and he launches into this lyrical passage

about how important it is to love women.

And, erm, I had these very tight

moleskin britches and, as I got into my stride, they split...

-Oi!

-..down the middle.

But that's an odd place for them to split.

What can I tell you?

GRAHAM LAUGHS HEARTILY

I'm glad I was not going commando that day and I had red...

..polka-dot underpants on.

Did people think it was meant to happen?

No. They enjoyed it.

Were you tempted to do it every night after that?

I was on with three other actors,

barely holding it together. Finally I got to the end of

the speech and we got a round of applause.

I've been in panto, I bet

-you've not done bloody panto.

-No. A matter of time.

30 years ago I was Dick Whittington in Newcastle.

-That's theatre for you.

-AUDIENCE: Yeah!

I got a bit chubby cos I got a bit depressed up there,

I was eating at this tearoom a lot, Carrick's.

I used to go on, I got a bit chubby in my stockings, you know,

Dick Whittington,

I'd go, "Hello, children. Are you going to be my friend?"

One of the kids went...

-GEORDIE ACCENT:

-"No, fuck off, Jumbo!"

That's theatre for you. When they talk back.

"Right, what's your name?" "Terry."

Annoying little bastard in the front, you know.

All the nuns are in with the coach party and it was horrible.

-You've been scarred by that.

-Oh, I've been scarred by it.

Scarred. Ralph, you haven't given up film because your new movie is

-A Bigger Splash.

-Yup.

-When does that...?

12th of February, 12th of February.

It's a fantastic cast, you can see there.

Tilda Swinton, Dakota Johnson, yourself,

-Matthias Schoenaerts?

-Schoenaerts.

Now, it's almost a love quadrangle.

Love quadrangle, yeah.

I don't think I've ever seen you play a part like this before,

you're kind of wild in this.

-I'm a wild and crazy guy.

-You really are.

LAUGHTER

The idea is, people who kind of share a romantic history

are all thrown together on a Greek island...

-It's an Italian island.

-An Italian island, not a Greek island.

-Pantelleria. It's an island between Sicily and Tunisia.

-OK.

Near Greece. And, erm...

-Oh, Graham.

-That was tense, I think.

Your character... The idea is you're trying to rekindle a romance.

-I've come back to reclaim Tilda Swinton.

-Who's a rock star.

Who is a rock star on holiday, recovering from a throat operation

with her younger boyfriend lover, Matthias Schoenaerts.

I was her beau in the past and we split up,

and I passed my friend Matthias on to Tilda.

I've put them together and gone and now I've come back to reclaim her.

Cos I realise I made a big mistake.

This is the clip from The Biggest Splash and, in fact,

it is a night on the town just

when you're starting to woo Tilda's character,

who's resting her voice.

# If I had her

# In my hands your body and soul

WHOOPING

-SHE WHISPERS:

-# Come, come, come to me

CROWD FINISHES LYRIC

-SHE WHISPERS:

-# Come, come, come to me

SHE WHISPERS

# Come, come, come to me

SHE STUMBLES

# Come, come, come to me... #

SHE WHISPERS

CROWD CHANTS

Very good. APPLAUSE

In it, you're very kind of relaxed, very free, you're very...

We see a lot of you.

We see your spire.

In miniature, I think.

No, it's fine, it's all there. It's all there.

The potential is there.

The sequel.

-Completely naked? Everything?

-Everything.

-The old chap?

-The old chap.

-Wow, good for you!

-No messing.

-Usually it's just the girls, I'm proud of you.

-Oh, no, Tilda does it too.

-She does it.

Girls always do.

Tracey Ullman, have you ever...? Have you ever... ?

No, no, I've not done it. Prosthetic ones, I do prosthetic ones.

-Yes.

-No, I've never been asked.

-Would you?

-Would you?

No.

You're being asked now. Look, Ralph Fiennes is asking you.

I will for you.

I'll sit over here on my own.

We've seen you, you've done the TV nudity. We saw it in Cold Feet.

You did it too? Oh, that's is just bum, not the old chap.

-Is that you?

-Yeah, that is really you, isn't it?

Your audience has really waited too long to see that again.

The last job I did...

When I did it with that guy, when I did it there,

the dresser that fitted it was a guy called Greg, a big...

unusually, in the business, a big butch lad from Australia, actually.

Oh, no, from Manchester called Greg.

His name is pasted into the buttocks of my memory.

He spent all day having to reapply, to re-stick the rose there.

After that job he disappeared, he went to Australia!

No-one has ever heard from him since! The last job

I've just finished in Belfast, I had to do a fair amount of...

a day of sort of...

nudity and sex scenes and stuff but they covered my bits with a wee...

I shouldn't say a "wee".

So Northern Irish Protestant, "wee," you think...

With a pouch that kept coming apart. So again the dresser,

Sophie she was called, she had to spend a day kind of reapplying...

These jobs aren't easy. I am sure that's not why she

-went into the business.

-It's not for the faint hearted.

No, she can't have thought, "Oh, look what I am doing today!"

The new Cold Feet, are the scripts ready? Have you started filming?

What's happening?

No, we start in... Old Feet.

We start in three weeks' time.

-Wow.

-We've got a read-through next week.

I haven't seen a lot of them for, you know...

Well, I haven't seen loads of them for 12 years, really.

I mean, we didn't sort of get together. We didn't

sort of deliberately keep apart, it's just the nature of the thing.

We are going to see each other

in two weeks and the scripts look good, they've tried

to get us to do it for a number of years. I think it wasn't

quite ready, they hadn't

quite sorted out the various zeros on the cheques.

We're very excited to do it.

It was weird, I just saw Helen Baxendale, she was just in Midsomer Murders.

Well, she's not in it, of course, cos she died.

Of course, she died.

She survived in Midsomer Murders, that's a feat

for a guest star! Well done her.

We've been waiting 12 years for new Cold Feet,

but we've been waiting even longer

-for Tracey Ullman to get back on the BBC, it's 30 years.

-30 years!

You must be shocked that it's 30 years.

I mean, I just never got offered a job in this country.

Seriously, I'm always coming and going. I was really flattered to

be asked, and Charlotte Moore is the head of BBC One, and Myfanwy Moore

is the head of comedy,

these two girls just asked me to come in and said,

"Is there anything you'd like to do?"

The last time I was at the BBC,

it was all men in bow ties doing The Goons.

"What, what, what? We need more national service jokes."

It was!

"Can you be a traffic warden? Ha-ha-ha!"

I had a good time. I had a great time with Lenny and David,

it was a long time ago.

Then various things happened.

I was back at the BBC,

I have absolutely loved it, I've had a brilliant time.

-This is Tracey Ullman's Show.

-Yes, Tracey Ullman's Show.

It starts next Monday at 10:45.

It's funny... I was saying to you outside,

it is hard to come up with a sketch show that has fresh characters in it

but this is...it really does.

Well, it's Britain today. To me, it's a melting pot,

it's this global hub, it's a 24-hour period of Britain,

and people come in and people go out

and people try and get in and people get thrown out...

Famous people within it,

there's a through story of what happens from dawn to dusk.

It's tonnes of different things.

Lots of impersonations, which I have never really done before.

Yeah, no, but... Now, the famous people...

You do people like Dame Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Angela Merkel.

The Angela Merkel, there's a sitcom in Angela Merkel. There really...

You just want more and more of Angela Merkel.

-There she is.

-There's Angela Merkel.

-GERMAN ACCENT:

-That's right, Angela Merkel, I love her,

I think that she's always with men all the time,

with Berlusconi and Cameron and Obama,

and she wants to just be with girls. I got this idea that I think

she thinks she's very sexy.

Everybody is...right now... I am sex bomb, sex bomb...

..when I'm in the room.

And then I wanted to do her with her friend.

She does her arms like this. Anyway.

I digress. She sings and everything, we discovered.

-She sings beautifully.

-She is terrific.

-Ja.

-She is terrific.

-Eurovision winner 1982.

Called A Little Peace. Remember that song? Ja, was wonderful...wunderbar.

Anyway, I don't know, I wanted to be her, so I am her.

Do you come up with the funny bit first? Like the joke or

do you kind of think, "I can do them, write me something funny for them?"

Yeah, I wanted to be a series of national treasures,

cos that's what we have in this country.

Kevin and Andy, Kevin Cecil and Andy Riley,

came up with the wonderful idea that,

-JUDI DENCH VOICE:

-Judi Dench can get away with anything

because she's a national treasure. So she can shoplift.

Then I got this brilliant make-up, and then it comes from there.

-Anyway.

-We've got a clip, this

is you as Dame Judi Dench being a

national treasure at the supermarket.

Oi! I saw that, do you want me to call the police?

I don't know what you mean.

-Oh, it's you, isn't it?

-If you mean, "Is it Dame Judi Dench?"

then, yes, it is. How very nice to meet you.

Sorry about that.

There must be something wrong with the security camera.

Yes, well, they can be temperamental.

I loved you in James Bond.

Oh, we just try to tell a good story. And thank you.

What was I thinking? Dame Judi Dench wouldn't shoplift.

-You're a national treasure.

-Exactly.

And because I'm a national treasure, I could get away with anything!

But, of course, I don't. What is that over there?

-My mistake.

-It's an honour meeting you.

-Yes. Lovely to meet you too.

You have such a lovely shop here.

SHE CACKLES

APPLAUSE That was uncanny, wasn't it?

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant make-up,

Floris my genius make-up artist. We were

filming in Richmond, actually.

WHOOPING Big up the Richmond!

Somebody from Richmond? Yeah, how lovely. I might do panto there

this year. People thought we were filming something from Bond.

A couple of them got convinced.

You know Dame Judi Dench.

What's she going to make of it, Ralph?

-I think she'll love it.

-Oh, thank God! Really?

She might start shoplifting, actually.

She's going to become a shoplifter.

They'll want her back on Bond.

-You were in it together.

-We were in it together.

-Right.

-She wasn't happy that I took over as M.

-Really?

-Oh. Why not?

-Well, cos I replaced her.

-Oh.

In fairness, that would piss you off.

So, she...

In the first one I appeared in, my name is Mallory,

so a way of getting back to me was to call me Valerie.

Any time I meet her she would say, "Hello, Valerie!"

And she nicks things from your house.

So if you stay in that Judi Dench make-up all day,

you obviously don't mind the prosthetics and the costumes

because, Ralph, you hate prosthetics and things, don't you?

-I don't love them, no.

-You choose jobs to avoid them.

-After Voldemort, I did, I have. Yup, yup.

-It's hard.

-How much

of it is prosthetics on Voldemort?

Actually, to be honest, on Voldemort not so much.

-A lot of painting and...

-Oi-oi-oi.

-Very little, actually!

-Teeth, the eyes...

More or less... I see what you mean.

-Latex round the eyes.

-They shaved the beard off, right?

Wasn't there a moment when

you knew the Voldemort look was working when you were on set?

Yeah, I passed by...

The script supervisor has a little boy who was on set.

-His son, maybe?

-Her, her son, I think four or five years old.

Anyway, I passed by this little child, I looked at this boy,

he just burst into tears.

The costume must have helped as well because it's quite frightening.

The costume actually wasn't...

It was just a lot of flowing silky stuff

that I kept tripping over.

I had these tights on underneath.

-They were like ladies' tights.

-And they ripped in the middle!

LAUGHTER DROWNS OUT SPEECH

-No, they didn't rip.

-I like that they were ladies' tights!

Are there other sorts of tights?

-They're not the sort of tights you wear at the RSC.

-Oh, OK.

You did have a problem.

What happened was the tights used to work their way down,

so the gusset of the tight was sort of around my knees.

So I couldn't walk as elegantly as I would like as Voldemort.

Eventually I said to the dresser, he was called Neil,

he was very sweet. He always had his head up my skirt

trying to adjust things. I said, would he mind cutting them off?

So I had a garter belt.

For most of Harry Potter, underneath the robes,

I had a very nice garter belt.

You've spoiled it for everybody now.

Now, here's the thing, James Nesbitt. In the Hobbit,

I look at this picture of you in The Hobbit,

I think, "Well, that's not bad, it's a hat and a beard,"

but, in fact, there was loads of prosthetics went on.

Oh, aye, there were early starts in the morning.

It took quite a while.

If you are doing it for... It was astonishing, the look and the way

they create it, and I admire and applaud the incredible detail and

-artistry, but...

-But!

After two years, it takes a wee...

You sent us a picture of what... So underneath...

-But you can't see any of that.

-That was me getting up in the morning.

How long did it take altogether?

The whole thing every morning,

I suppose, about three and a half hours long.

-Listen, beats working for a living!

-I would like to be in

a film... No, I wouldn't.

Not easy being me, terrible.

Is it true that they in fact didn't really want you to

look like you in The Hobbit?

Thank you, yes.

But there is some truth to that.

Wasn't there a dinner?

Oh, no, no, no, that was because...

I constantly... And, in fact, twice today, every day I get

confused with the actor John Hannah.

John Hannah who was in... I don't think I look like him at all.

We've got a picture of John Hannah. Where is he?

Oh, come on!

-You do look a bit...

-I wouldn't mind looking like him there!

He looks quite well.

We are the spit of each other!

I get it all the time and right at the beginning of The Hobbit

I went for a private dinner with Peter Jackson and his partner and

one of the heads of Warner Brothers who were behind the movie.

I walked in and he said,

"I am so excited you are involved in The Hobbit,

"I loved you so much in Sliding Doors."

I was like, "That's not me!"

I've still never really understood.

Did he think they'd cast John Hannah?

I sign John's name quite often, he signs mine.

It gets to the point where people come up to me

and go, "I loved you in Four Weddings and a Funeral," I say,

"Yes, that Auden poem, it's so beautiful.

"Blah, blah, blah, Stop All The Clocks, John Hannah."

Quite often I'll do James Nesbitt, and you see them walking

away and going, "Oh, man..."

What do you get? You get someone.

-I get mistaken for Liam Neeson.

-Oh, you do?

-And he does for me,

I have been complimented in my performance in Taken 2.

I get, "You were wonderful in Educating Rita! So much fun."

Do you really get Julie Walters?

Yeah, everyone thinks I'm Julie Walters.

-I don't have a picture of Julie Walters.

-I do look like her.

We've got a Liam Neeson, we've got a Liam Neeson

but I don't think you do look particularly like Liam Neeson.

Well...no. Hmm...

Apparently, they've got one thing in common, those two boys.

That's all I'm saying.

Scratches head, doesn't understand.

Does he get confused for you?

Yes, he's been complimented on his English Patient.

Everything sounds rude.

It does with Liam and Ralph.

Being in the Hobbit, a big franchise like that,

did it make you a cool dad for your girls?

No, they're much cooler and funnier than me.

The eldest one, from a very early age, she was very funny.

She was startlingly quick at being able to speak.

She was talking when she was just two.

She had a sense of humour very early on.

There was one time when I was driving when she was two and a half,

it was just the two of us in the car and I was driving and

I broke wind.

But there was this five-second pause and, on my daughters' lives,

from the back of the car came,

"Another Minging Fart by James Nesbitt."

-Two and a half!

-That's good.

Where does that come from?

Tracey, you seem to like the idea of being an embarrassing mother.

You do... You just become a permanent figure of fun as you get

older with your kids.

I did something really embarrassing with my kid Johnny as few years ago

when I was still having to buy him swimming trunks for his holiday.

You know, you take the kid to buy swimming trunks, he's like,

"Come on, let's go." I took him to this kind of fancy boutique place

around the corner, they didn't have anything, really.

You know, it was like Speedos and he's not

a Speedo kind of kid, he needs something with a bit of

an elasticated waist, a quick-dry gusset.

I should have gone to British Home Stores

but I thought I'd take him somewhere nice.

I saw this very gorgeous young black assistant

amongst the rails doing stuff. I said, "Excuse me, can you help me?

"My son's looking for something, elasticated waist, quick dry gusset.

"He's a little chunk star." And Johnny's going, "Mum, Mum, Mum."

I'm going, "Johnny, I'm going to ask the man,

"let me just, let me just..."

"Mum, Mum, Mum, it's Kanye West."

Now that's embarrassing, that.

I didn't know.

He was very nice but he was holding something...

He went, you know,

"I guess you think I'm cool. I'm working in this store.

"That's OK. He thinks I'm cool." Oi-oi-oi!

Poor Johnny. I didn't give it up.

I saw him getting in the lift, I was like,

"Excuse me, I'm terribly sorry about that." Johnny was like, "Enough now!"

This was British Home Stores?

Then I just went to British Home Stores.

-Would have been better if it was.

-Take the kid to...

Well, James Nesbitt, supercool now,

because he's bringing us Sky 1's big adaptation of Stan Lee's

Lucky Man, which starts on Friday, January the 22nd.

Of course, this is Stan Lee, he created all the Marvel characters.

He co-created Spider-Man and Thor and Iron Man and Captain America,

all those things,

quite a long time ago. This was something he had always thought of.

He used to be asked, "What would your superpower be?"

He liked the idea of controlling luck.

This is a contemporary sort of quite glossy,

fast-moving thriller set in London,

in which London plays a big part, actually, and it looks amazing,

about a cop who's down on his luck,

he's a compulsive gambler, this is who I play.

And he meets this mysterious woman who, after

spending a night with her at a casino,

where he has finally won some money, he spends the night with her,

he wakes up in the morning with this ancient bracelet upon his wrist,

which seems to be able to control luck.

But there is a price to pay. It's very much of that genre.

But for you it must be just fun. As an actor, you must love doing it.

It was just magic. Particularly on the back of stuff I had done

recently, this was very different.

The notion of luck is something that appeals to all of us,

you know. What is it? Does it exist?

Can we control it? There is a thriller element to it.

London just looks amazing.

It really does, it looks so slick and beautiful.

The Shard has got a bigger part than me.

The Shard features prominently - the spire!

Oh, yes!

Quite often I realised the director was going,

"And could you just move...

"just maybe step just to your right a bit?"

And I'd be like, "Oh, yeah, I see."

Listen, this is such an action clip.

It's a real kind of proper James Bond speedboat.

-As close as I'll get.

-But you're really doing the speedboat.

Oh, no, I was doing it. And in these days of health and safety,

it's astonishing that this was allowed to happen, because when you

watch this, I am doing it and I am scared,

and the boat was more in control of me than I was

in control of the boat. Which is terrifying.

And we're going through the Thames Barrier, I think,

-at three in the morning.

-OK, let's have a look.

Harry, stay back.

Get down.

Slow down.

-Shit, shit!

-There's not enough room!

Harry!

-Ooh!

-Wow.

-APPLAUSE

When I'm driving the boat there, there's a man sort of at my knees,

and at one point he was going, "Jesus, slow down, slow down!"

GRAHAM CACKLES

"Not funny, not funny."

All right, it's time for music. Now, this man...

Wait for this as a statistic.

This man's debut album Chaos and the Calm

was top ten in 51 countries.

Yeah. Now he's got three Grammy nominations.

Performing Best Fake Smile, please welcome James Bay.

APPLAUSE

# No, you don't have to wear your best fake smile

# Never stand there and burn inside

# Oh, oh, oh, if you don't like it

# She's working late and making eyes at the door

# She's sick of everybody up on her floor

# She wants the sun in her eyes but all she gets is ignored

# She used to put it out and get it all back

# But now she's slipping trying to carry the act

# She's sweating under the lights, now she's

# Beginning to crack

# And you don't have to wear your best fake smile

# Don't have to stand there and burn inside

# Oh, oh, oh, if you don't like it

# And you don't have to care, so don't pretend

# Nobody needs a best fake friend

# Oh, oh, oh, don't hide it

# Yeah!

# No hesitation now she gets up and walks

# She thinks of all the pain and pride that it cost

# She empties all the tip jars and don't get back what she lost

# Outside the window with two fingers to show

# She lifts her head up just to blow out the smoke

# She doesn't have to look back to know where she's got to go

# Yeah

# And you don't have to wear your best fake smile

# Don't have to stand there and burn inside

# Oh, oh, oh, if you don't like it

# And you don't have to care, so don't pretend

# Nobody needs a best fake friend

# Oh, oh, oh, don't hide it, no

# If you don't bleed it you don't need it any more

# If you don't need it get up and leave it on the floor

# No more believing like it's a voice you can't ignore

# If you don't bleed it you don't need it, no

# And you don't have to wear your best fake smile

# Don't have to stand there and burn inside

# Oh, oh, no if you don't like it

# And you don't have to care, so don't pretend

# Nobody needs a best fake friend

# Oh, oh, oh, if you don't like it

# And you don't have to wear your best fake smile

# Don't have to stand there and burn inside

# Oh, oh, oh, if you don't like it, no

# Oh, oh, oh

# No, if you don't like it. #

CHEERING

James Bay, everybody. Come on over, James.

Drop your gee-tar.

Wow, energy to burn. Congratulations. James, that's James.

-Nice to meet you.

-Tracey, that's Ralph.

-Amazing.

-Thank you. That was fun. Thank you so much.

Wow! The energy of that! That was fantastic, thank you so much.

Ay, it's an honour to kick off the year.

Well... You've kicked us off, I tell you.

That is of course from the album Chaos and the Calm.

It's still for sale but presumably everyone's got it now.

It sold amazingly well.

-Yeah, it's, erm...

-Just go with yes.

-Yes.

It is mad to think how many people have it, yeah,

that's an exciting thing.

Must say, good luck with the Grammys. When are the Grammys?

It's like Valentine's Day. Or the day after.

I think that's...how I remembered it.

-I think it's the 15th of February.

-15th of February.

Listen, someone will make sure you're there.

It would be really annoying if you missed it.

"I was sure it was the 15th!"

I'll try and get there.

Thanks for doing that great performance and

good luck on the 15th of February.

All right, thanks a lot. James Bay. Very good.

APPLAUSE

Before we go, just time for our first visit of the year

to the big red chair.

-Who's there? Hello.

-Hello.

-What's your name?

-Graham.

-Is it? OK.

-Where are you from, Graham?

-I'm from Glasgow, originally.

OK, lovely and where do you live now?

Well, I'm currently working in London.

OK, what do you do?

I'm a brand manager for a well-known pharmaceutical company.

(Boots.)

We can't be sure it's (Boots) but it probably is.

All right, Graham, off you go with your story.

The first thing you need to know is my girlfriend and I

were butt-naked in bed.

-Good start to any story.

-Good start!

-Very good start.

Non-exclusive, though.

We were in a train carriage travelling through South Africa

and it was one of those really quite

old locomotives, so it was like an old carriage, wooden,

and they had a partition door.

During the night, my girlfriend nudges me and says,

"Did you hear that?" I'm like, "No, I didn't hear anything."

I had to get up and check, obviously.

Being completely naked, I got up and tried to put my trousers on

because I didn't want to tackle bandits stark naked.

Obviously.

And, all of a sudden, the train starts to slow down

and, with it being an old coach system, they started to collide

together like a domino effect,

and that sent me careering through the partition door straight

into the next cabin

and I landed straight on top of the woman that was in the other cabin.

Now, it's at that moment

when her husband woke up and looked at me and I realised I was

sitting on his wife's face.

Ooh!

-Good story!

-Good story.

-Good story. You can walk, you can walk.

Well done. If you would like to join us on the show and have

a go in that big red chair, you can, just contact us

via our website at this very address.

That is it for tonight.

Please, say a big thank you to my guests Mr James Bay...

CHEERING

..James Nesbitt...

CHEERING

..Tracey Ullman...

CHEERING ..and Ralph Fiennes.

CHEERING

Join me next week with musician Jack Savoretti,

actress Gemma Arterton, the irrepressible Miriam Margolyes

and Friends star Matthew Perry.

I'll see you then. Goodnight, everybody, bye-bye.

APPLAUSE