What I didn’t initially know is that tickets to the audience for all of these show are free. You just have to sign up to be in a lottery and one day the show will just e-mail you telling you what day you have your tickets for. Shay booked tickets for four people and we lucked out! My British flatmate told me that these shows always overbook the audiences, so you need to get there at least an hour before they open the doors in order to get promised a seat.
Around an hour before the doors were opened, the four of us showed up to the studio. I didn’t realize it before, but the studio where The Graham Norton Show is filmed is literally a 20-minute walk from my dorm. While we were in the safe zone for showing up so early, we were faced with a huge queue. We got nervous as we got in line and hoped for the best. Shay informed us that if we did not get in this show, they would give us priority tickets for the next show, which would promise us that we would get in.
Workers for the show started to come down the line, check out tickets, and give us wrist bracelets with a number. I was given #298 and the last person in our group was given lucky #300. They started letting the priority seating in first and the line started moving. We knew that the audience sat 600 and depending on how many people showed up for priority would predict if we got in or not. Well, we finally got to the door and low and behold we were probably the last 25 people let in! I was super stoked!
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| #298! |
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| Graham Norton's Hands as we waited in line |
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| Stephen Fry's Hands as we waited in line. |
We were told strictly to not take any pictures, but please…if you have learned anything from these blog posts, you will have learned that I take pictures in the most secretive places. I snapped a few pics on my iPhone and got settled in. We were relatively far back from the stage, but there were no ‘bad seats.’ If anything, we were better off since the moving cameras wouldn’t block our view. On the left of the stage were the couches and seats where the interview would happen, the middle of the stage held the stage where Graham Norton would give his opening spiel, and on the right was the stage where the singer would perform. We were on the right, so we got a good view of the performance stage.
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| The set of the Graham Norton Show! |
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| The set of the Graham Norton Show! |
Before Graham Norton came out to film, a comedian came out to prep the audience. Shay told me that all the shows have this since they want to warm up the audience before filming. The comic was funny and started asking questions from the audience. Well, as I predicted he asked if anyone was from out of the UK. I, being the loud person I am, screamed loudly. The comedian asked me where I was from. I informed him I was from the states, more specifically Philadelphia (to make it easy on the Brits). He cracked some jokes about America and asked me more questions about my stay here. It was like 3 minutes of fame.
Finally Graham Norton ran onto stage and gave us a heads up about filming. The show is pre-recorded, so he had to do a couple takes of the opening sketch. The first time he recorded the opening, he cursed and then screamed out “AW, I JUST MESSED UP! RETAKE! RETAKE!” To be honest, the guy was hilarious. He was quick on his feet and always had a witty response. The guests of the night were:
1. Famous French Actor Gérard Depardieu (who is also somewhat famous for getting kicked off an airplane for peeing in the aisle)
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| Gérard Depardieu |
2. The US hit show Homeland's Damian Lewis. Damian was also in the TV show Band of Brothers.
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| Damian Lewis |
3. British X-Factor's Olly Murs
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| Olly Murs |
4. And finally actor Dominic West, who is known for his role on the HBO show The Wire. He is also in the new film “John Carter.”
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| Dominic West |
Depardieu basically made the show. He was a senile man, who spoke little English and forgot what he was talking about midway through his sentence. I felt awkward and uncomfortable every time he spoke. I cannot wait to see the edited version of the show because they probably had to cut out half of the things he said. He said a racial remark about Barak Obama, spoke about he likes to grope women, and spoke a lot about his peeing incident. He talked for almost 20 minutes about when you have to pee, you have to pee! It was somewhat hilarious and awkward. When Damian Lewis said something funny, Depardieu screamed “Stop making me laugh or I shall pee!” in his thick French accent. The best part about this is that halfway through filming HE GOT UP AND LEFT TO GO TO THE BATHROOM. He just was like “Graham….I need to pee,” got up, walked of stage, and urinated. He came back around 5 minutes later to all of our laughter. By the end of the show all Depardieu would say is that he could not wait for a smoke. When people say that the French are rude, Depardieu is a prime example, but his rudeness was just so great it made it hilarious. I think the worse thing he did was that he kept on calling the actor Damian Lewis – William! He kept on calling him by the wrong name. It was super awkward. Graham Norton kept on saying Damian’s name hoping it would drop the hint to Depardieu, but I don’t think he ever realized his mistake.
Damian Lewis talked about his crazy fans and how Obama loves his show. Homeland is about the CIA and supposedly Obama liked it so much, he invited Lewis over to the White House for dinner!
Olly Murs talked about his new success from the X-factor, a story about him going bathroom on the side of the road, and how he tweeted at a British singer Cheryl Cole. The only reason he talked about the bathroom incident is because Graham Norton tried to make Gerard Depardieu feel better about his public urination by getting the other guests to tell a story.
The last guy Dominic West talked about his new film “John Carter”, which I did not even know existed? Well…now I do…and I kind of want to see it.
Olly Murs sang his new hit on the show. The funny part about this bit is that before he performed, he went to the bathroom. After singing, the stage manager ran up to him and told him that not only was his fly down the whole time, but that they were going to have to redo the whole song. So basically, we got to watch him perform twice.
The filming was two hours long and there were no commercial breaks put into the filming, so like I said I am interested in seeing the final cut.
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| In the far left you can see the guests taking their picture with Graham Norton. |
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| The Actual Picture of the group. |
Shay said if I visit her in NYC when we get home that she will get me tickets to the Stephen Colbert show. Oh my lord- that may be the best day of my life. I also now get to brag that I have seen Graham Norton live and that he is a super nice guy. I would totally do that whole process again and see the filming. Next week is Hugh Grant and famous DJ David Guetta and I would do anything to see themmm! We just lucked out with the most awkward interview ever with Depardieu saying his crazy French lines.
In other news, I watched this film called “Funny Games.” It is basically a psycho thriller about sociopaths that normalize killing. I told Laura and my cousin Hazel to watch it. Hazel informed me that not only has she seen it, but it is also one of her favorite films. Well the point of this story is that I recommend it. It is not scary, but it just plays with your mind. I now want to watch this film called “The Bicycle Thieves.”
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| Film of the week. |
Update: Here is a clip on youtube of the show that I watched being filmed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvzHtGURObY&feature=player_embedded
Hi, what time was the show filmed? I'm interested in going down there even if I don't win (to catch a glimpse of one of the up-coming guests) and I wondered what time to get there? Your account of your day was really cool and I hope I get tickets! Thanks
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