Graham Norton : For Your Pleasure DVD

Featuring a montage of highlights from his weekly Friday night series, Graham Norton: For Your Pleasure is a splendid showcase of the slickly uproarious, impeccably vulgar chat show host who is part Frankie Howerd, part Dame Edna Everage, part Julian Clary, but mostly himself. He hosts this programme in elderly make-up, enjoying the ministrations of a young manservant. Norton fans will be familiar with the formula. Included here are quite outrageously lewd confessions from members of the audience, one of whom made love to a frozen chicken only to find his parents... tucking into it the next day. But it's the guests who are the true staple of the show. Mostly women, mostly glamorous but just over the hill, and so willing to play good sports to Norton, they include Cher, Dolly Parton, Alison Moyet, Dolph Lundgren (who stoically endures Norton's flirtatious attentions) and David Ginola. The host doesn't so much interview his guests as regale them with surreal Internet clips of penguins tripping each other up or goats having heart attacks. They're also willing to dish a little dirt: Cybill Shepherd confides that "there was one thing Elvis didn't eat… 'til he met me". Norton has priceless fun with Sophia Loren, who he has order a pizza named after her over the phone and play in a mock-EastEnders sketch, as well as introducing Martine McCutcheon to the delights of the Hot Cock, a microwaveable penis substitute. It's gross, camp, crude yet pulled off with great panache. On the DVD: Graham Norton: For Your Pleasure comes with a droll commentary, in which Norton comments on the curious English accent Gillian Anderson adopted for the show and pours scorn on the cheapness of the props. He's also interviewed at length in his dressing room, where he proudly shows off the bizarre, vulgar and kitsch items viewers send him. Also interviewed is resident audience member Betty, elderly butt of his jokes, who reveals that her newfound fame enabled her to jump the queue at her orthopaedic ward. --David Stubbs [show more]

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