Friday Funnies 4

With all the dreadful things we see in the news every day I think it might be time for some light relief. Cue the next episode of Friday Funnies. In previous posts for this and its predecessor Saturday Smiles I have shared several clips from chat shows, and in particular from the BBC’s Graham Norton Show. I saw recently that he has been doing this for 30 series, which means there is a lot of material to draw on! I thought that for today I would share some of my favourites.

This first one is a mélange of two appearances on the show by Matt Damon – you may have heard of him, I think he is some kind of actor. There are some very funny bits in these, shared with Bill Murray, Hugh Bonneville and the lovely Jessica Chastain:

These are typical of the show: Graham’s talent is for making people feel at ease and bringing out their natural side. And he does it by mixing guests who will blend well. This next clip is a good example of that, featuring a rock musician, a comedian, and a movie star, who feed off each other to great effect:

I love the interaction on that between Graham and his three guests: Chris Martin, Rosamund Pike and Michael McIntyre. It’s what good chat shows are made of.

This next one is more recent, just three years ago! I shared a post last week about Lewis Capaldi, and remarked on his natural wit. For his appearance on the show he played one of his songs, but as this isn’t a music post I’m just giving you the post-song chat. It is a little sweary but, that’s Lewis. To make sense of a question he asks Graham, you need to know that the show is recorded on Thursday for broadcast on Friday evening:

The doyen of British chart show hosts was Sir Michael Parkinson, who died a couple of months ago. One of his favourite guests was Sir William Connolly, but most of the clips that exist from those shows are a little grainy, so I thought I’d give you one with better video quality. This is from an appearance on the CBS Late Show, with Tom Snyder, back in 1998:

And this is a brief snippet from an early appearance on the Parkinson show, back in 1975, which is of decent enough video quality for me to play. And the joke is a good one, too:

Not wanting to outstay my welcome I thought I’d leave you with just one more. It’s back to Graham Norton for this one:

Seth MacFarlane has been on the show several times, and there are a number of other clips I could have played. For me, though, this one ticks all the boxes: a talented guest, doing what he does best, with fellow guests who absolutely loved it – especially Cyndi!

That’s all for today, but this occasional series will return in a few weeks. I hope I’ve lightened your day a little. Mine got off to a good start with the news that our inept, crooked government had managed to lose two of its safest seats in by-elections, with some of the biggest swings seen since WWII. I hope your day is going well too. See you again for Song Lyric Sunday 😊