No TV format is less forgiving than the primetime chat show. Many gladiators have entered the arena and eaten dust. From Davina McCall to Charlotte Church, Michael McIntyre to John Bishop, it is a graveyard of the gifted and the game.
To do it brilliantly, you need several things: the ability to create rapport between a sofa full of guests who have never met; the timing of a standup, with an acid streak beneath the warmth; and rarest of all, a knack for keeping the room pleasantly on edge. Graham Norton has all that, and then some. Trying to make it look as easy as he does is next to impossible.
