There has always been a lot of "is he/isn't he?" speculation about Graham Norton. And now that the Cork actor and comedian has his own chat show on Channel 4, there is much examination of certain "tell-tale" signs like a facial expression here or a bodily mannerism there. A very private person who has always been reluctant to talk about this aspect of his personality, he now realises that the time is right to make a public announcement: "Yes, it's true, I am a Protestant," he says boldly.
"I'm from Bandon and we're all roaring Protestants down there," he says in his trademark 120-word-a-minute delivery. "Have you never heard the expression `even the pigs in Bandon are Protestant'? No? I can't believe you haven't; I thought every Irish person knew that. How very strange." Maybe in Dublin we're too busy drinking cappuccino to be wondering about stuff like that. "Dublin, Dublin," he says with the air of someone scanning their long-term memory banks to find a connection, "oh yes, Dublin, I was born there." Where? "Clondalkin or Monkstown, or somewhere like that." There is a difference. "OK Clondalkin then; it's more cred." Why all the confusion about something so trivial? "It's just that I don't know too much about myself . . . "
And that is how a conversation with Graham Norton goes - much ado about nothing with plenty of pleasurable distraction thrown in but anything of real significance flippantly relegated to the bottom of the bill. For someone who's fast becoming a household name in Britain - he's only the second Irish person to have his own prime-time chat show - little is known about him, except that he's Irish.
A very accomplished, and at times beautifully vulgar stand-up comedian (he's a past Perrier nominee) the 35-year-old first became known for his barnstorming appearance in Father Ted as the terminally happy and frighteningly enthusiastic youth priest, Father Noel Furlong. He was then given his own late night Channel 4 quiz show, Carnal Knowledge (which was sort of an adult sex cabaret meets Blind Date) before winning a British Comedy Award for his work on Channel 5's Jack Docherty Show - on the night, Kathy Burke announced that the winner was a "big Irish poof". And now So Graham Norton, a 10-week run of chat shows that he describes as "kitsch and tell". The only problem is the show goes out on Channel 4 at the same time as The Late Late Show - "it's terrible; even my parents have to video my show, because as you know in Ireland, you simply have to watch the Late Late live".
A bit like Parkinson fronted by the Carry On troupe, the show is a quick-paced jaunt through irreverent celebrity question-and-answer territory coupled with some risque audience interaction. In the first series last year, Graham introduced Ivana Trump to the joys of phone sex, exclusively revealed that Judith Chalmers doesn't wear knickers on Wish You Were Here, explained to weatherman Ian McGaskill what a dominatrix is and how much it costs, and got members of the audience to reveal intimate details of their sex lives.
Studiously avoiding issues and topical news ("we don't do anything of world importance, unless it's in a very superficial way") it's a light-hearted comedy of sexual manners. "Some people have the perception of me being risky, but I just ask people questions that I genuinely want to know the answers to," he says. "Maybe it's just that other people on television just don't ask the right questions. I'm sure if Trevor McDonald had an audience and asked one of them to fake an orgasm, maybe they'd do it for him too."
Discussing fake orgasms on British television is a far cry from his upbringing in rural Ireland. His father worked for Guinness, so the young Norton lived at various times in Kilkenny, Tramore and Waterford before settling in Bandon. He's anxious that his Alma Mater there gets a mention, "it's called the Bandon Secondary School, and the only reason I mention it is that it's part of my on-going campaign to get invited back one day to present the school prizes", he says with a filthy guttural laugh. It was a very sports-orientated school with the emphasis on rugby - "I don't know why they were so obsessed by sport, they never won a f***ing thing." Later, at UCC, where he studied English and French but never got his degree, he first trod the boards with the Drama Society and generally had a ball at the college, "drinking loads of coffee and faffing about in one-act Lorca plays".
He decided he wanted to become a journalist. "I thought it would be a really interesting and creative job," he says (and he's not the only one laughing this time), "because I just didn't think there was such a thing as a professional actor; I just thought you could do it as a hobby."
After a year away in the US, working in restaurants - "I loved it; I could do whatever I liked over there" - he got accepted to the London Central School Of Speech And Drama not long after he made an important discovery about himself: "This sounds really weird but I had a very clear moment of self-realisation - It suddenly dawned on me that I was a very camp person." It was, he says, his very campness that ruled him out from ever becoming a straight actor. "When I was in Drama School, I was really, really bad at doing anything serious; I'd always be playing things for laughs. During the improvisation sessions, the jokes would just come to me, and I soon realised that this was a strength I could play to."
He then wrote a series of monologues that he fashioned into one-man shows and brought to the Edinburgh Festival. "It was really just me babbling on so it sort of mattered less that I didn't have any real gags. And that's the reason I didn't do stand-up, until the people at Edinburgh said I was mad and should go on the circuit." Although he describes his stand-up act as "just a bunch of old camp nonsense", there's a lot more depth and resonance to his material than he acknowledges. In 1997, when he was nominated for a Perrier award (losing out to The League Of Gentlemen, who are only now fulfilling their potential on BBC2) his show was coming down with richly arch observations about growing up gay in Bandon. A lot of his material isn't printable, but there was a line he used to do about the only gay bar in Bandon - "it was called The Altar Rail, they served red wine and bar snacks" that undermines his "bunch of old camp nonsense" argument.
What's most impressive about his live work is how he is that rarest of creatures: a naturally funny person. With only five minutes of scripted material, he can entertain a theatre full of people for a whole hour. And unlike other performers who rely a lot on audience interaction, there is nothing cruel or point-scoring about his dialogues. He is also versatile, appealing as much to grandmothers as teenagers, and would be equally comfortable presenting an afternoon chat show as a bawdy latenight affair.
Discovered by television producers at Edinburgh, he is one of the few comics who have successfully transferred their stand-up acts to television. "I've been really lucky with the people I work with," he says, "I didn't want to be put in somebody else's idea, so the show I do now largely lets me be myself and draw from my own stand-up show. I've seen so many good comics who are just put in other people's vehicles and they spend years trying to work their way back from it."
He thinks that he gets away with what he does because he is perceived as "non-threatening" to women in a sexual manner. "Being a gay performer always comes with a sort of responsibility, and this whole camp, non-threatening thing is always a bit of a problem. I know, for example that James Dreyfus (the actor in the BBC sitcom Gimme Gimme Gimme) has been told by some gay people that he's an insult to the gay community because of his campness on screen. So yes, there can be some negative feedback. I don't know though - in James's case people should realise he's a brilliant actor - he won a gold medal at RADA.
"It's a tricky area and as I said there is a sort of responsibility involved. I'm not a political being, though, and what's very odd is that the minute you get your face on television you get all these letters from people and societies asking you to be their patron and support their cause. You can't do everything though; you just have to pick and choose."
Saying that he has felt in the past "more gay than Irish" he's humorously indifferent to the fact that he's always omitted from the "successful Irish comics in London" list. Even though his humour shares a lot of the characteristics of that of Dylan Moran, Tommy Tiernan and Ardal O'Hanlon, he remarks: "I'm always the last name, if included at all, in articles about Irish comics. I think it's just a case of `isn't he Irish as well, put him in somewhere near the end'. It doesn't really bother me though."
Neither was he overly bothered by the violent threats he received last year from the British neo-Nazi group Combat 18 who wanted him dead on the basis of his sexuality - Graham, God bless his Co Cork socks, initially thought they were an organisation campaigning to lower the age of consent for homosexual sex and was prepared to do a benefit gig for them. "It's the price of fame," he says. "I do find that being on television does change things, for example because I have a very friendly on-stage persona, I do find people coming up to me a lot when I'm out, expecting me to be their friend - and then never letting go."
Oddly enough, he says he's "terrified" of doing shows in Ireland. "Well, I did do Cat Laughs in Kilkenny one year and that was great but I really am terrified about doing gigs in Ireland, and I don't know why. You know what they always say about having an Irish accent in Britain, it's as good as being classless because you don't fit in with their system so you can be who you want to be and nobody knows any different. But back home, I just feel so exposed when I'm doing a show; I feel as if the people know me - or rather know too much about me . . . "
So Graham Norton is on Channel 4 on Fridays at 10.30 p.m.