June 24, 2004
TV Review | 'THE GRAHAM NORTON EFFECT'
In a Show About Sexual Exploits, Blushing Is a Sin
By NED MARTEL
The New York Times
ere's what "The Graham Norton Effect" could have been: a raucous showcase for campy humor and true confessions, a gay-straight alliance to flout taboos and comfort those who reveal their secret shames. Here's what the first episode of Comedy Central's new series turns out to be: a freak show.
Graham Norton is a skilled stand-up comedian with a London-based talk show that was a favorite destination for Britons after the pubs closed. ("So Graham Norton" became a late-night cult pleasure on BBC America as well.) Mr. Norton, using his Irish accent to good effect, honed a potty-mouthed persona that brought gays and straights together to laugh about bodily embarrassments and celebrity foibles. The American version of his show, which has its premiere tonight, has much of the same flamboyance but takes the proceedings one gross-out too far.
His first guest, the pouty diva Sandra Bernhard, arrives with studly shirtless twins on leashes. She offers up her lackadaisical, bitter self and chats by speakerphone with a Web site owner who has an unusual oral fixation: he is fascinated by famous mouths and has a fetish for dental hygiene. All 200 people in the studio then brandish toothbrushes to inspire an ecstatic moment for the Web guy, and Ms. Bernhard halts the action to question the quality of the bristles. "Sandra, we've both had worse things in our mouths," Mr. Norton says, moving right along.
That's the kind of bawdy quick-wittedness that has rescued Mr. Norton in the past. His new production is stifled by moments of dead air or rowdy interruptions or celebrities seeking to claim his audience as their own. Fans of his British production can cheer him on, hoping that he will regain his magic powers and become something more thoughtful than merely a lecherous leprechaun.
His sexual frankness has long proved that kinkiness â?? in its harmless, playful sense â?? is not confined to the margins. In his care, mainstream heterosexuals have copped to mix-it-up pleasures that steer monogamy away from ennui. ("Well done, you!" he often exclaims to someone who proves game for his antics.) Of course, an adventurer like Mr. Norton can lead his audience beyond the boundaries many viewers dare not cross. In the British version, he once introduced his audience to a Cher-worshiping balloon fetishist whose passion caused his much-used prop to explode during a surprise phone chat with the singer.
Mr. Norton stages the same festivities, but something has deflated his American premiere. He reconfigures his old set and replays old gags, but the main missing ingredient is the British audience. They have funny accents. They use charming euphemisms. They maintain a prim demeanor that belies the situations they recount.
Americans attending this first episode hear a gently prying question â?? "Have you ever been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time?" â?? and the competition begins. Audience members show off their public-sex prowess and seek to outraunch one another with outlaw escapades. A celebrity guest then gets into the act: to the whoops of the crowd, Marlon Wayans bounds onstage and mounts the host's desk to simulate sex with the computer screen image of Ms. Bernhard, with whom he must then share air-kisses and pleasantries. Only, apparently, in America.
Mr. Norton begins his stateside foray on the one network that would truly let his imagination run wild. Strangely, the outcome amps up the wildness and downplays the imagination. At one point, the audience for this Manhattan taping gets so worked up that Mr. Norton yells, "Shut up!" So much for playing a gracious host. And then he rewards their relative hush with an audiotape of an audience member's orgasm moans.
If the humor were tamer or at least less chaotic, the timely discussion of sex and taboos might have been edifying â?? or at least more fun. Mr. Wayans starts an interesting digression about how sex was so mysterious in his religion-dominated household that his brothers conducted secret kissing demonstrations with grapes. Mr. Norton then produces a bunch and the discussion drifts toward body parts, and all hope is lost.
Mr. Norton is a stranger in a strange land, to be sure, and maybe he merely got stuck with a much-too-live audience. If his show's problems are solved, perhaps he can become a gay pioneer when television sorely needs one. Carson Kressley of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and Steven Cojocaru on the "Today" program are tiring out as the sassy, product-endorsing jesters. The fact that the soon-to-start gay cable channel will be called Logo suggests more-of-the-same propaganda that all homosexuals are material girls. Mr. Norton might be the man who can, as Jack McFarland of "Will and Grace" has said, "put the sex back in homosexual." And perhaps, by any leering and enlightening example that he contrive, he can revive a worthwhile gab session, with libertines and justice for all.
THE GRAHAM NORTON EFFECT
Comedy Central, Tonight at 10, Eastern and Pacific times; 9, Central time.
Graham Norton and Graham Stuart, executive producers. Produced by So Television.
