Luke Littler is sitting alone in the green room of the Jonathan Ross Show. By this point we have already heard: Liam Gallagher talking about his dog; Raye recounting her 6am trip to McDonald’s after winning six Brit Awards; Millie Bobby Brown from Stranger Things on her future wedding; the comedian Rob Beckett on his new quiz show. Gallagher and John Squire have played their new single. The chat is flowing. Famous people are laughing with polished, performative loudness.
There are about 10 minutes left when Littler is finally summoned to the famous brown sofa. He gets on exactly as you would expect of a 17-year-old with virtually zero experience of the celebrity milieu. Everything here is diffidence and shrugs, short even words delivered in a short even tone, not so much recalcitrance as a basic teenage refusal. He doesn’t hate your question. He doesn’t love your question. He doesn’t really think anything about your question at all. It’s just there, hanging, and he’s learned by now that if he says a few words the question will go away, a car is going to come and take him home and then he’s going to play on his Xbox.
