Graham Norton is the host of “The Graham Norton Show,” a British Eurovision commentator, and most recently had a scene-stealing cameo in Taylor Swift’s “Oparite” music video. Now he’s adding another thread to his bow by hosting the new ITV game show The Neighborhood, which launches on April 24 on ITV1 and ITVX.
The upcoming 11-episode series will see Norton directing six families as they move into a street where cameras have been installed, where they take part in various challenges in a bid to win £250,000 (approximately $336,000). You can also pop a giant “For Sale” sign outside your door and get your neighbors to vote. The last household to escape eviction goes home with a prize.
After previewing the show in London, Norton took part in a Q&A session where he revealed why he agreed to host the show, what he thinks will appeal to viewers, and how Taylor Swift brought her music video ambitions to life.
“I’m Mr. Twicky Curtain.”
Norton said she was attracted to the idea of the show because it was so innovative. “Normally, when we get pitched for a show, it’s always highlighted in terms of other things, like a combination of ‘Deal or No Deal’ and ‘First Dates,’ or ‘Love Island’ and ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'” he says. “And you always think, ‘Oh, I don’t want to do something that’s a pale imitation of something else.'”
“What was so refreshing about this was that it was an idea I hadn’t heard before, and it tapped into the minutiae of everyday life that we’re all fascinated by — well, admittedly me, too. Neighbors, what’s going on? I’m Mr. Twitchy Curtains. But it goes beyond that. And the scale and ambition of this thing, I mean, it’s a real neighborhood, it’s almost 200 cameras. I’ve never worked on something of this scale and scale, because not only the gaming part and the big setting part, but also the reality of what’s going on inside the house 24/7, and that’s just as interesting and fascinating. ”
“Even though I’ve never been in a movie, it felt like I was in one,” Norton added. “It’s huge and it’s so uplifting, like ‘The Truman Show’ or something. So you don’t really know what’s real and what’s fake. You don’t really know where the real flowers start and the fake flowers start. I mean, seriously, I’ve seen people watering fake flowers.”
family drama
This program is of no use to strategists. “I feel like I made a mistake going into this with a game plan,” he reveals. “Really, the families that are successful are the ones that treat it like real life, where they go jogging with their neighbors and just get along, and they don’t mind a little business, and they’re just being friendly and nice people. Those are the families that do really well on this show. Even if it’s a game show, I think you have to go in with the mindset of, ‘Oh, I know what I’m doing.'”
The drama between families was just as explosive as the drama between different households. “A lot of times when you go into a game like this, you look around and say, ‘Who can I trust?'” In this case, the people you can trust are the people you live with, your family. Because you’re all competing together. But another thing I liked is that the gameplay takes place between households. So you would think there would be some drama and tension between the individual families. But much of the tension and drama occurs within the existing household. Everyone was smiling, but when I walked in, I was like, ‘Why did you say that? ” he says. Why did you do that? That was a really stupid thing to do. ”I love everything about it. ”
Transition to going out
When families are voted off the streets, they are quickly removed. “I like that about it,” Norton says. “There’s a great shot of people inside a house watching someone walk towards them with a ‘For Sale’ tag. So what they do is one person from each household comes out with a ‘For Sale’ tag and they all stand there together and do a voting sequence. It’s brutal because it’s instant. You don’t have to do anything. Literally, the removal team shows up, there’s a van, you’re gone, you’re never seen again, and that’s it, and you’re out of there.”
Although Norton didn’t live on the street with the contestants, he was nearby during filming and watched all the drama in real time. “I had a little house and I had a bunch of screens set up so I could always see what was going on. So that was my day. I was just there eating chips and watching everything happen, but I was over-caffeinated. There’s something[exciting]about hearing conversations that people don’t think you can hear.”
dreams come true
Norton also recently made headlines for appearing in Taylor Swift’s “Oparite” music video. “I got an email saying that the Taylor Swift people were interested in something, and I was like, what the heck?” Norton recalls. “Then I got an email saying, you know, Taylor was on the[Graham Norton]show. There was a great vibe, and when Donald Gleason said he wanted to dance in a Taylor Swift video, she literally got the idea. And it’s so weird. I didn’t realize it at the time, but when you watch the clip, you can see her little face saying, ‘Oh,’ as Gleason says. And then she left. She wrote that crazy story and asked all of us to be in it, and surprise, surprise, I said to Taylor at the time, you start giving up on dreams of being in a major pop video when you’re in your 60s, and she made it happen, and all in all, it was a really great experience. ”
