Graham Norton

Personally, I found Alan Carr's recent statement that gay men make the best chatshow hosts because they are "gossipy" rather annoying - not only because it relies on a particular stereotype, but also because it would imply that Graham Norton is better in the field than Jonathan Ross. For all his faults, Wossy still has the edge on that score. That said, the last series of Carr's show was often hilarious with the right guests. Whether Noel Fielding and Mariah Carey fit into that category, we'll have to wait and see.

There were real laughs to be had, and plenty of them, on Just a Minute (Radio 4, Sunday), the last in the current series. The mood was already rather hysterical ("When I look at that beautiful masculine form I can't help but think of King Kong" said Paul Merton of host Nicholas Parsons) when Gyles Brandreth was given the topic of "pretentious vocabulary". Off he went, unstoppably, unleashing a torrent of verbal flourishes. So unstoppable, in fact, that they let him go beyond the full minute. Moments later, Brandreth was emboldened to assert that he has no hair on his body at all. "Show us your chest," suggested Parsons. "Dear Lord," muttered Pauline McLynn. "Off, off, off!" chanted the audience. "What on earth," asked Graham Norton, "has happened to Radio 4?"

TV matters: The Graham Norton Show

Graham Norton's back - and he's parked his tanks firmly on Jonathan Ross's lawn.

Although Graham Norton was in his finest form about five years ago on Channel 4, his squawky chat show moves tonight to BBC One. The first guests are that rare combination of the incomprehensible and the ageless, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, chat show perennial Ricky Gervais (who was on Jonathan Ross's show just a month ago) and ballad mistress Olivia Newton-John.

Graham Norton on his move to BBC One: interview

As his chat show moves to BBC One, Graham Norton talks to Ajesh Patalay about money - and Jonathan Ross.

Norton warned over lesbian joke

The BBC has reprimanded Graham Norton's chat show for perpetuating "potentially offensive stereotypes" of lesbians.

Graham Norton's 500k pay cut

Graham Norton will stay at the BBC - but is set to take a £500,000 pay cut.

A 'grown-up' Graham Norton for BBC1?

The move of Graham Norton's chatshow to BBC1 will see the comedian "grow up", according to those connected with the show, although there will still be room for some fun and games.

Although not quite as miscast as fellow BBC family ent host Graham Norton, Steve Jones is nevertheless an odd choice for this, another TV quiz show. A Question of Sport-lite (circa 1970) with a bit of Screen Test thrown in, Jones struggles to make his scripted one-liners and banter seem anything other than forced. One senses that, like Norton, he's desperate to add some irreverence with a less-santised commentary. The feeling of to be or whoquite knowing what it wants to be or who it wants to appal to isn't helped by the show's erratic quest list, which by the show's erratic guest list, which runs from Pauline Quirke to Lauren Laverne.

Sorry Graham, smut's Nort on

Graham Norton will be banned from gratuitous swearing and smutty comments when his chatshow moves to BBC1 under strict new decency rules.