Kate Winslet

Radio Times review

The stars of Steve Jobs, the Danny Boyle film about the co-founder of Apple that closed the recent London Film Festival, are on Graham's sofa this evening. It's unlikely that we'll see a repeat of Michael Fassbender's wonderfully cool dance to Blurred Lines that he did when he was on the show with his X Men co-stars 18 months ago - unless it happens to be a favourite tune of Kate Winslet's, too. Also on the bill is Brooklyn star Julie Walters - a regular guest on the show because she is always such terrific value - as well as rapper 50 Cent.

Walking the Dogs, part of Sky Arts' Playhouse Presents series, was a fictional reimagining of the encounter between the Queen and Michael Fagan, the man who broke in to Buckingham Palace in 1982 and may or may not have sat on her four-poster shooting the breeze until help arrived.

Emma Thompson took the role of our monarch, perhaps mindful of the peculiar reverence that automatically comes an actor's way these days when they put in a half-decent portrayal of a royal (Kate Winslet's Extras advice that "you're guaranteed an Oscar if you play a mental" perhaps needs updating).

Her interpretation wasn't literal - the accent a little less cut glass and, in a cotton nightie rather than twin set and Barbour, the iconography reduced - but Thompson captured that singular steeliness without froideur that defines our perception of the Queen. Her exchange with Eddie Marsan's Fagan - here a decent, everyman type pushed to the brink by marital breakdown - was convincing, though the tension was dulled by the fact that we know everything ended tamely enough, blunting Marsan's shifts between meek and menacing.

Overall, there were few wildly original ideas in play and the script at times over-egged the parallels between an ordinary bloke trying to hold it all together and the duty-bound monarch, but then it didn't pretend to be a grand philosophical exchange and its gentle humour was endearing ("You'd never be able to just take off without being recognised, what with the stamps," Fagan observes). What it did very well though was pinpoint why it's easier for many of us to identify with the Queen than with, say, an equities trader from Goldman Sachs. Whatever you think about monarchy in the abstract, nobody could deny that life must be deeply restrictive for a modern royal.

Poor Kate Winslet, she always gets a right going-over for being a bit wiffly and weepy when she accepts awards. But give the girl a break, what's she supposed to do, say "Sod the lot of you, now where's the after-show party?"

Besides, doesn't everyone like seeing actors get a bit theatrically overwrought at these kinds of ceremonies? Anyway, Kate is a game girl so she probably won't mind if Graham Norton has some sport poking fun at her tonight when his fantastic chat show returns after its break.

Winslet will be on the couch talking about her new film Contagion, and she'll be sharing the spotlight with young Jamie Bell, who's come a long, long way from Billy Elliot to star as Tintin in Steven Spielberg's film of Herge's beloved boy adventurer. Rob Brydon also guests, while Noah and the Whale provide the music.

Oscar-winner Kate Winslet heads up the guest list, as anarchic comedian Graham Norton returns with a new series of his bawdy chat show. Fresh from rescuing Richard Branson's mum from a burning Caribbean island, Winslet is now saving the world from a killer virus in new film Contagion. She's joined by affable comedian Rob Brydon and Billy Elliot star Jamie Bell, picked to voice Tintin in Steven Spielberg's new movie. Music comes from indie folk band Noah and the Whale.

Rob Brydon and Jamie Bell join Graham on the sofa. And Kate Winslet takes the star spot to talk about new film Contagion and presumably the gossip that she's said to be dating a man who changed his surname to Rocknroll. Graham always brings out the best in his celebs with gentle teasing and wine. And the big red ejector seat is back for game audience members to spin their best anecdotes before Graham launches them into the scenery.