So naughty but so nice

Autobiography: Towards the close of Graham Norton's cheesily titled autobiography, So Me, the author tells us that, whenever he returns to Cork to visit his mother, one of her friends always insists on clarifying how appalling she finds his chat-show persona.

"I like Graham Walker," she thunders, referring to his given name. "But I don't like Graham Norton". Mrs Walker's pal is articulating a concern shared by many women her age: why does a nice, Protestant boy who speaks so well have to be quite so filthy all the time?

Some time this autumn we were due to discover if cuddly Graham, the housewife's choice, could prosper without his dildo-brandishing alter ego. Impressed by the way his mainstream appeal showed through even while encouraging female guests to expel ping-pong balls from places no ping-pong ball should be, the BBC has signed Norton to front its latest attempt at rejuvenating the Saturday evening slot formerly occupied by such family shows as The Generation Game. So where is clean Graham? A pilot was shot in May, but no series has yet been commissioned. There are mutterings in media circles that selling Norton without the smut may be as tricky as flogging Rod Hull without the emu.

So, for the time being, those fans without access to the cable channel,Comedy Central, where his current American show is running successfully, will have to make do with So Me.

The first thing to be said about the book is that it does indeed seem to have been written by Graham Norton. The fuss that the publishers are making over this fact confirms how depressingly rare it is for celebrities to contribute to books that bear their names.

But Norton really needs no help in stringing words together. As one might expect from a performer who honed his talent on the stand-up circuit, he has a gift for telling stories in an uncomplicated, economical manner and has a good understanding of just how heavily to pepper the text with his consistently excellent jokes. Most importantly, he manages to stamp his irresistible niceness on every page. However badly he is behaving, it never reads as if he is behaving like a bad person.

Mind you, it is hard to imagine anybody who has watched a second of the author's shows being even vaguely outraged by what he gets up to in So Me. In a foreword Graham rather sweetly explains that he has made his mum promise never to read the book and then goes on to urge the various postmen, mechanics and bridge players of Co Cork not to tell her what is between its covers. Whereas it is true that septuagenarian Protestant widows tend to have only a sketchy understanding of the private lives of media homosexuals, Ma Walker will, in her more anguished moments, surely have imagined her son up to much greater depravities than those described in his amiable book.

Some advance publicity has suggested that So Me might detail the star's torrid experiences as a rent boy. In fact, Norton describes - amusingly as ever - precisely why he decided not to become a rent boy. While spending a life-changing summer in San Francisco, still tinkering with the dials on his sexuality, he came across an advertisement seeking to recruit sexual hustlers. During the subsequent interview it became clear that he was expected to perform there and then. "Well if you apply for a job as a secretary, you're expected to write a letter," the damp Englishman said. Suddenly, the reality of Graham's situation came home to him and he fled.

This story appears in the much more enjoyable first half of the book.

The later chapters, detailing the triumph of his Channel 4 show So Graham Norton and its successors, contain endless lists of the not-very-interesting good habits of famous people. When he does portray his guests in an unflattering light, the relevant information - David Gest's, ahem, unsuitability as a husband for Liza Minnelli, Mariah Carey's hilarious demand that baskets of puppies be delivered to her dressing room - is usually already common knowledge. Really Graham, if you can't say something properly vile about a celebrity then it is probably best to say nothing at all. (Norton's mother, who is very sound on the ghastliness of Robin Williams, seems to understand this better than her son.) Thankfully he is rather more interesting about himself than he is about the likes of Donny Osmond ("couldn't be nicer") or Dustin Hoffman ("wildly complimentary to me"). The path from wetting the bed in Bandon to buying Claudia Schiffer's apartment in Manhattan takes him past some colourful scenery and he never stops marvelling at the absurdity of what he has become. Though he loves America, he retains a very Irish - and very Protestant - suspicion of the excesses of self-analysis. Even his gayness is described in terms of nothing more profound than a preference for the roughness of unshaven flesh.

At its best, So Me is deeply felt. If Mrs Walker is following her son's dictum strictly she should not even be reading this review, but her censorious friend may wish to encourage her to glance at Chapter 12, which describes the death of Graham's dad so movingly that I feel myself welling up just thinking about it again.

I would, though, stay well away from the chapter titled 'More French Oral' if I were her.

So Me By Graham Norton Hodder & Stoughton, 342pp. £18.99

Donald Clarke is a critic and feature writer. His film reviews appear regularly in The Irish Times