More than 1,000 people attended two separate interviews of Graham Norton by Galway's own Pauline McGlynn last week.
To two sell-out audiences at the Black Box Theatre last week, McGlynn, from Renmore - best known as Father Ted's Mrs Doyle - interrogated Norton on his new novel, Frankie, on behalf of Kennys Bookshop. This is the actor, writer and TV presenter's fourth novel.
Norton explained that this was not his first on-stage experience in Galway, and that in the early days of his career as an aspiring stand-up comic he was booed off stage here: "I managed to wing it in Bristol, then in Sligo after flying in to Knock. But the next day in Galway the audience was chanting at me to 'f**k off' off the stage," he told a packed theatre.
Norton, who lives between West Cork and London, explained that the difference between English and Irish audiences is that for the English, "they need to know someone in a story," and are perhaps more interested in celebrity culture. Irish audiences are "happy to hear jokes about anyone", he joked.
McGlynn, herself an author, interrogated Norton on his writing process, and said that growing up in Catholic Ireland, she found Norton's latest book a fascinating insight into "ordinary" Irish, Protestant life.
Frankie follows the story of Damian, a young Irish carer looking after the elderly Frankie Howe in her London flat after she has a fall. Her memories travel from post-war Ireland to 1960s New York. Frankie shares a world in which friendship and chance encounters collide, and where life blazes with an intensity that cannot last, but will perhaps live on in other ways and in other people.
McGlynn invited questions from the audience for Norton about his new book, but instead one woman asked Norton what embarrrassing tale he would tell if he had to sit on the famous 'red chair' on his Channel 4 chat series The Graham Norton Show. Event attendees were sworn to secrecy, and all the Advertiser can reveal is that if funny man Norton's writing is as good as his story telling, his new book will do just fine.
Frankie by Graham Norton is available from www.kennys.ie
