On the show tonight, it's welcome back to the great Tom Hanks.
And this time, he is playing the grumpiest man alive.
Is the world going mad?
Let's start the show!
Hello!
That wasn't so bad.
Hello, everybody.
Good evening.
You are all so welcome to the show.
Great guests for you tonight, I can tell you.
Excitement levels are going over-the-top.
A bit like a Harry Kane penalty.
AUDIENCE GROANS.
Ooh, Harry.
Still, at least the French were magnanimous in victory...
LAUGHTER.
So, now it's the World Cup final on Sunday.
Argentina versus France.
Everyone watching it?
Maybe not!
It promises to be the biggest, fiercest International grudge
match since Wales versus Sussex.
LAUGHTER.
Chilly, chilly!
Netflix and chilly!
Now, this is our last show before Christmas.
A bit earlier than normal but we wanted to give the audience
nine days to find a train home.
Good luck, everyone!
I mean, everyone's on strike.
Even the nurses came out yesterday.
In response Rishi Sunak offered hospital staff a 4% pay rise.
Hmm.
And that's him trying to get an appointment after they told him
to shove it up his arse.
But hey, it's not all doom and gloom.
Luckily for this time of year there's one cheerful old man
with a beard who going on strike.
I'm still doing my show!
Hey!
Let's get some guests on.
Later, we'll have music from rising star Rina Sawayama.
There she is.
But first - he's gone from Pointless presenter to best-selling novelist
- it's Richard Osman!
Why, there he is now!
Hello, sir.
Hello, Graham, how are you?
She's the BAFTA-winning star who's taking the lead as Whitney Houston
in the biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody - it's Naomi Ackie!
CHEERING.
Merry Christmas.
Richard, Naomi.
She's one of our best-loved actors, star of Doctor Foster,
Gentleman Jack and Vigil - it's Suranne Jones!
CHEERING.
Oh!
She shimmers, she shines.
And he's the double-Oscar- winning star of Forrest Gump,
Philadelphia, Saving Private Ryan and Toy Story, to name
but a few and he's one of our favourite guests -
it's Mr Tom Hanks!
CHEERING.
Tom Hanks, everybody.
Lovely to see you all and so nice to have you back in the studio, Tom.
Last time it was on Zoom.
How about that? It was from Australia, yes.
You guys were so separated. Oh, look at that!
Oh, my lord. Stop!
LAUGHTER.
He looks better in person, right? My lord, that's horrifying!
That looks like the guy who says, "before I kill you, Mr Bond...!"
Sad, sad, sad portrait.
Welcome to you, Suranne.
I think you're the only person who's ever come on the show and drank
a generic Irish cream liqueur. Hmm.
Well, yes, they said what do you want and I said,
just a sparkling water and then I heard that there were
other Christmas drinks going and being a nana,
I said I'll have a Bailey's, thanks.
So that's what I've got.
I would have had a Bailey's if I'd known there were Bailey's See?
It's a generic Irish cream liqueur!
But it's the most delicious generic Irish cream liqueur.
And a first-time welcome to Naomi Ackie.
Hello.
APPLAUSE.
I'm so excited for you.
Whitney Houston and I Wanna Dance with Somebody.
You just had the big premiere in New York.
Yeah, I just flew in today.
There, how about that for a red carpet look?
Wow.
That's taking the world by storm.
And what do Americans make of meeting the woman playing
Whitney Houston and then you speak with a British accent?
Oh, they were really freaked out.
Accents don't come easy to me at all, so onset I would be talking
as Whitney and then afterwards I'd be like, "bloody hell,
that was a hard day, innit?"
"Oh, I'll tell what, I don't half want to dance with somebody!"
Yeah!
LAUGHTER.
It's DAN-ce, not DARN-ce!
Well, congratulations.
Thank you.
We'll find out more about it later on.
Talking of congratulations, let's keep it going
because Richard Osman just got married!
CHEERING.
Congratulations!
This is the honeymoon. This is my honeymoon.
Now they are. Different suit, that's good.
Exactly.
You know what, don't think it didn't go through my mind, Graham.
When was that? That was the third, two weeks ago.
Wow.
You should know exactly when it was!
About two weeks ago!
And did you go on a honeymoon or is this it?
Yeah, we did. We just got back from Venice.
You sound quite bored!
"Yeah, we did..."
Every mistake in the book.
I couldn't be happier.
And then you get to meet Tom Hanks after a honeymoon, that's not bad.
Again, shouldn't say that either.
You've peaked.
That's it, it's all downhill.
We had to cut it short by about a week-and-a-half,
but it was worth it.
Actually, you say that.
I mean, lovely wedding picture, there, but it was missing one thing
and that was Mr Tom Hanks.
You like to photobomb a wedding.
Oh, I'll jump into that any chance.
Really?
Can you photobomb into mine?
Just tell me when and where and I'll happen to be jogging by!
It started in Rome, right?
Yes, we needed to shoot, we were shooting Angels and demons
and we were shooting in front of the Parthenon, very famous.
It is also a church, an ordained church and there
was a beautiful young couple that were getting married and their
limousines were in our shot.
And Ron Howard said, "I don't know what we going to do with this!
"What is going on?"
Let me take care of this.
So I went up and knocked on the door and said, "young lady,
"you are very beautiful and will you allow me
"to escort you to the altar?"
So, she came out with her dad and we walked through the crowd.
Parted like the Red Sea.
Oh, my God. There we are, that's right.
You know what I saw that picture earlier and I thought,
I really hope that is her dad!
Yeah.
There I am in my costume and we got right up
to the door to the Parthenon.
As movie people we are not allowed inside so on they went and she made
it to the church on time.
# Made it to the church!
Me coming over and doing that!
# Made it to the church on time!
APPLAUSE.
All right, let's start with Tom's latest movie.
It is called A Man Called Otto.
It opens here on the 6th of January.
So, Tom, you play Otto.
Who is Otto and why are we interested in him?
Otto is a man, he has no faith in the future,
he thinks he's lived it all, done it all.
He's retired, he is alone, and he's ready to sort of cash it in.
And then the worst possible thing happens, fabulous people
move across the street, from another country, and he thinks,
this is the last thing I want, these people knocking on my door.
And it turns out to be the greatest thing that ever happened.
And this is based on a Swedish book A Man Called Ove,
and then there was a film.
So, did you see that Swedish film before you said yes?
Six years ago we are watching and if you remember the Academy
of Motion Pictures, a BAFTA, one of the two, you get free DVDs.
Back when you still had a DVD player in your house, anybody?
Those kids, scratching their heads.
And we saw this and my wife Rita produced as well,
she was a producer and I was watching, this movie is fantastic,
it has a performance by a man named Rolf Lassgard,
who played Ove.
And I was thinking, this is fantastic, I wonder if this
could work in America?
And just as this was going through my head, Rita said to me,
"we have to make this movie in America!"
"You have to play this guy."
So we did and we were just in Sweden, we were in
Stockholm last night.
This was, honestly, if the Swedes don't like what you've done
to their national treasure, this is a recipe for
disaster, am I wrong?
And they actually appreciate it.
It's very much an American movie and in fact I said to Marc Forster,
who directed it, and the producers, I said there's already
been a man called Ove, there's been a great performance
by an actor playing a man called Ove, so I will be playing a man
called Otto in a movie called A Man Called Otto.
And they said, "how do you spell that?"
"O-T-T-O."
They said, "we thought you said A-U-T-O".
So that actually makes sense.
Weirdly, that's just about to be in our clip.
We've got a clip.
This is you as Otto being very grumpy to your new neighbours,
played by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and Mariana Trevino.
Trev-VEENIO.
Trev-VEENIO!
Hmm.
Hi.
Hey.
Otto, right?
Otto.
Yeah, that's what I said.
What did I say?
It doesn't matter what you said.
Otto.
O-t-t-o.
Oh, Otto. Oh Otto.
So it's the same forward as it is backwards.
Otto.
You don't hear that name very often.
I do.
OK, if we are interrupting, we can always come back.
What is it you want?
I brought you some guacamole.
Why?
Because you looked hungry.
Anyway...
We just...
We just wanted to properly introduce ourselves, because we're
going be neighbours, so...
So.
OK, bye.
Are you always this unfriendly?
I'm not unfriendly.
OK, you're not.
You're not unfriendly.
Every word you say is like a warm cuddle.
APPLAUSE.
Tom, I wonder, in this movie, is it nice to release your inner grouch?
Oh, it's fantastic.
You see, OK...
And my family, I have two phrases that the whole family knows.
The first one is, oh, dad is boiling.
Dad is boiling.
That phrase is, "OK, let me get this straight."
You ever do this, you know?
"I see, I see."
"Let me get this straight."
"You la-la-la-la-la-la, but I doddle-dee-dee-dee.
That would become a dad's going there.
All of us are leaning!
Tom Hanks has been mean to us!
The second half is, "why would it work for me?"
That means I've gone over the edge.
Why would it work for me?
The entire world picks up a remote and watches the Graham Norton Show
anytime they want to.
Why would it work for me?
I'll tell you why, because the remote says
menu, press, source, on, subject a camera subject become
a red button, yellow button.
None of this turns on the TV!
Why would it work for me?
APPLAUSE. Have some generic Irish liqueur.
I have a six-year-old who said to me when I left the house,
"are you going to meet Woody?"
Angry Woody!
Woody wasn't happy today.
But I haven't had to press any remote.
Everyone has things that trigger them.
Suranne, have you got things that set you off?
The biggest thing, it's weird to say this on a talk show
but public loos and the state of public loos.
You know if you've been on a flight or whether you really need the loo,
you just want it to be clean.
So maybe there should be a public announcement,
if you've done your business and it hasn't flushed right
or whatever, try again.
I'm so sorry, Tom.
Let me get this straight...
LAUGHTER.
Like, and it's women's toilets.
It's really bad.
Try men's!
You kind of expect it of men.
Not that you expect it of men. Expect it of men?
LAUGHTER.
You know, but ladies, you would think that we are clean about it.
Yeah.
Really don't.
But that's like, sometimes if women are forced to use men's toilets
in an emergency and they just go, that was disgusting you go, yeah,
I know, we've had to use them our entire lives.
We don't love them.
And Naomi, you have a thing that upsets you.
It's feet.
LAUGHTER.
What, all feet?
It's like, when it touches me.
My dad used to torture me with his feet when I was a kid.
OK.
LAUGHTER.
This has turned dark all of a sudden.
I'm sorry, dad.
We'd be watching TV and I'm eight years old and I'd turn around
and his foot is just...
Distressing.
Once I had a birthday sleepover, I was sat on the floor and one
of my friends was on the sofa and she put her foot on my face
and then scrunched up her toes!
I kicked her out of my house.
LAUGHTER.
You've got to have rules.
You have to have boundaries.
And Tom, one of your sons, Truman, is in this film,
playing the younger...
The younger version of me, yes.
He's not the actor in the family.
He's an artist, he is going to a cinematographer.
He's being carrying around a camera since he was 13 years
old and developing his own film.
Marc Forster, the director, he is Swiss.
He says, "you know we're going to have to cast
a young version of you."
"Too bad you have two kids that are too old."
My sons, Colin and Chester, too old.
"But what about your youngest, can I meet him?"
I said, well, he doesn't want to be an actor.
He said, I don't care.
Can I meet him?
"Because then I won't have to audition a bunch
"of people who look like you.
So he did and our DNA actually matches.
It does!
LAUGHTER.
That would have made me mad!
I thought he was extraordinary in it.
But I always say to the kids, it is great work if you can get it
but you've got to make it stick, so follow what you want to do.
So his passion really is shaping the shot as opposed
to being in the shot, but he can do either.
Well, you can see Truman and you can see Tom as A Man Called Otto
in cinemas from the six of January.
Tom Hanks, everybody.
APPLAUSE.
I haven't finished my generic tea!
Weirdly, Tom is not the only person paying someone grumpy.
Suranne Jones brings us Christmas Carole.
This is the updated Dickens, it is Sky Max, Christmas Eve
at eight o'clock and you play Carole with a E.
So, how does this take on the Dickens work?
So, I was doing Gentleman Jack and I was sat in the make-up chair
and I said the next thing I want to do is a Christmas film.
I want to make something that my son, who is six, can watch,
because he hasn't really been able to watch a lot of my things.
So...
Exactly, yeah.
APPLAUSE.
Good mother.
Yes, this is what mummy does that you can watch.
It is Christmas Eve, it is a tale of Christmas Carol.
Who is Christmas Carole underneath?
So, she has this company that makes awful Christmas decorations
and Christmas produce and sells it for lots of money and she just rips
everyone off, basically.
There's actually a sustainability thread that goes through.
That's good.
There is.
So, we have the ghosts as you can see,
the ghost of Christmas past, which is Morecambe and Wise.
Jo Brand, with her golden loo brush is present.
And she plays Jo Brand.
She plays Jo Brand, yeah.
And then Nish Kumar is the ghost of Christmas future.
So, all comedians.
They're just brilliant.
They really are.
This is a clip and it is Christmas Carole meeting Morecambe and Wise.
THEY SING "BRING ME SUNSHINE".
Excuse me, young sir.
We are looking for the one they call Christmas Carole.
That's me.
He thought you were Des O'Connor.
Yeah.
You're actually Eric Morecambe. Oh, yes.
And he's Ernie Wise.
Delighted to meet you, Miss Christmas.
But you're both dead.
She's quick, I'll give her that. What's happening to me?
She hasn't got it yet, has she? No.
I don't think she has. We're the ghosts of Christmas past.
APPLAUSE.
So, Nish plays Nish, Jo plays Jo, but Morecambe and Wise are played
by Jonty Stephens and is it Ian Ashpitel?
Yes.
Now, they are amazing.
So, is this what they do?
Yeah, so, I'd actually already seen them in a theatre.
When me and my husband got married we did the Morecambe and Wise dance.
So we got married on our own.
Was Tom there?
Tom wasn't there!
The Morecambe and Wise dance.
We got married on our own and we played Bring Me Sunshine
so when we came out, two seconds after this picture,
I fell over the dress.
Lawrence was like, oh, my God.
So I took him for our first anniversary to see Ian
and Jonty in their show.
And they're not in anyway doing a parody of them.
It's not a tribute act, they're so good.
And the song, Bring Me Sunshine which you had at your wedding,
also very popular in Richard Osman's house.
It wasn't at your wedding.
No, it was my first song on Desert Island Discs.
I was thinking about television and how much I love television
and how much it means to me and how much it means to us as a country.
And that song and those two people brought the country together
in a way perhaps that will never be brought together again,
if you know what I mean.
Everyone loved them and everyone understood where they came from,
they came from the music Hall and vaudeville and that kind
of stuff and came through into this incredible new world,
so they held us all together for years.
And that one song is the one song I think,
when you think about television, you think about entertainment,
you think about joy, that's the song you think about.
Yeah.
So, if you didn't have that at your wedding,
what did you have at your wedding?
I walked on, I had my own entrance. Theme tune!
I didn't have Tom Hanks, I had to have something.
I walked into Lose Yourself by Eminem.
LAUGHTER.
You only get one shot, don't miss your chance, that one.
My palms are sweating, all that kind of stuff.
I walked in on the beat and it got such a huge cheer.
My wife was in a little anteroom said she was nervous and then heard
this enormous cheer and I thought, everything is going to be all right.
And then she walked onto The Long And Winding Road and the whole place
just absolutely disintegrated.
And then we walked into our wedding breakfast
to Let's Get Ready To Rumble by PJ and Duncan.
LAUGHTER.
So we lost a lot of goodwill.
I like the playlist, yeah.
Tom, did you have any special songs at your wedding?
I fought for the theme to On Her Majesty's Secret Service
sung by Louis Armstrong.
# We have all the time in the world.
# Time enough to love.
But my wife chose True Love by the Everly Brothers.
Oh, beautiful.
Naomi, obviously you're planning your wedding.
Tom's booked.
Of course!
Have you got any songs in your back pocket?
LAUGHTER.
It's in my head but I won't share it!
OK.
It's...
# Ooh here she comes.# Oh!
Oh, yeah, that would be good.
What's the...?
She's a man eater!
A man eater!
APPLAUSE.
Yeah, use that!
Go with that.
The groom standing at the altar going...
"I came on to I Will Always Love You and you're coming on to this?"
LAUGHTER.
If I was officiating that wedding and you came
in to Maneater I would say, "dude, get out of here!
Run, run!
And Suranne, as you say, your son can watch this.
So, has he seen it yet?
Yeah, he came to the screening.
It was the first time that he was able to come to a screening.
So, he was quite excited.
He managed to sit through the whole thing and he said "yes,
mummy, it was very good.
Phew!
Phew, exactly, yeah.
The reviews are in.
Yeah and then he had a lot of sugar and he fell on the floor, you know.
So, Gentlemen Jack is obviously quite adult.
Could he not have watched Vigil?
He...
Well, with Vigil I said "well, mummy gets put on a helicopter
and dropped onto a submarine."
So, I showed him that bit and then it got a bit violent.
I mean, that is great.
And that is real you.
Is that happening, are you being lowered onto a submarine?
No, Graham, I'm not!
LAUGHTER.
So, when I read scripts, I get so excited and this
one I immediately went, oh, I really want to do it
because I had a vision that I would be, not thinking
about insurance, obviously, I'm going to be in a helicopter
and get dropped in the middle of the North Sea.
And I was in a car park of a supermarket on a crane.
LAUGHTER.
We got a picture.
This is the reality.
Oh, no, it's fake!
I don't want to know it's fake!
And when I got to the bottom there was a man here underneath the crane
that threw a load of water on me.
I would watch that, to be fair.
Put a live fish in it!
Did they call lunch when you were right up at the top?
"It's lunch!"
You know when they're checking takes and stuff and you don't hear
anything and you're like, "Did you like it or not?"
So I was up there and I'm like, "Are we going again?"
Did they give you any direction up there?
"Can you have more of a look in your eye that says,
'What's happening to me?'" How did they direct you up there?
They kept saying, "Spin round to the camera."
Oh, because you can control that.
And that was the camera there.
So there's a video of me doing, like a ballet dance...
Is it true that they're going to make another Vigil?
They are, but not with submarines.
I was going to say, she wouldn't be that stupid.
No!
She kept getting locked in places and everyone kept dying.
That bit when you were in the tube was so scary.
Yeah, and I was submerged, actually, in the tube.
I think you forget that actually, at any moment, you can just
say, "Can I get out?"
You get so into it.
That's why stuntpeople should do stunts and actors shouldn't.
Well, we look forward to Vigil 2
and you can see Suranne in Christmas Carole on Christmas Eve.
Very good.
Christmas Eve.
Now, this is exciting.
Naomi Ackie is Whitney Houston in I Wanna Dance With Somebody.
It opens everywhere on Boxing Day, and this is a big deal.
It's the first biopic that's been authorised by her family.
Clive Davis executive produced it.
So were all those people involved in casting you?
Yeah, I guess so.
I mean, I didn't know at the time.
I was just filming self-takes and then seeing what happened.
But yeah, they were and it was great because I got to talk to them all
the way through the whole process.
Clive, I went to his house when I arrived in the US and we had
a lovely lunch and then we went to his cinema room and sat
and watched Whitney's live performances and I was just like,
like, you're Clive and I'm me.
And I just sat with a notepad while he's pointing out
all the things he found special in her live performances and,
working with that, I tried to make sure I did that.
Listen, the clip we have is one of the highlights of her career.
It's that amazing performance
she did of the national anthem at the Super Bowl.
So this is Naomi Ackie as Whitney Houston.
# O'er the ramparts we watched
# Were so gallantly streaming
# And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air...
Yeah, hit that.
Hit that.
Yeah!
# Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there
# O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave?
# O'er the land of the free
# And the home of the brave?
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE.
I'm an American!
I'm an American.
You got me.
That wasn't in a Sainsbury's car park, was it?
No.
Such epic performance and God, Americans do do those
things really well.
You can ask an American, they all remember that moment
because everybody watches the Super Bowl and
everybody saw that.
And the voice, the singing, a lot of it's Whitney,
but you were mixed in as well?
Yeah, so there was a kind of question about how to morph
into Whitney's voice because we do do some songs from when she's a lot
younger and there are things we don't know about in that area,
so I took about one and a half of the songs at the beginning
and then, you know, Whitney.
You know, and for some dramatic beats and stuff,
I filled in some of those spaces but hopefully, by that point,
you're along for the ride and you understand
what the rules are.
And I noticed Whitney's teeth are not your teeth.
Yeah, I've got a gap.
LAUGHTER.
So what were they, were they painted in?
No, they were fake. They were flippers.
We had one on the bottom and one on the top.
And I had been working on the accent for about six months.
Um, and I thought, "OK, I've got the accent down,
I think I've got this".
And then suddenly they put the teeth in and it was like relearning it
all over again because...th-th-th.
So it took a second to get used to.
I don't know about you guys, but at the end of the film
when you realise it's ten years since Whitney died, I had no idea.
It feels long, but also quite a short time.
Yeah.
And of course, it was the oddest of circumstances
with that Grammy party.
Tom, were you at that party?
Yes.
Every now and again, you get invited to a party and say,
"I cannot miss this, because everybody who has ever been
a fabulous singer is at this".
But because the news had broken in Los Angeles,
it was like an earthquake.
We couldn't believe it and the question was,
"Do we still have this?"
Clive Davis said, "Absolutely.
We are not going to not celebrate the life of this woman".
It was quite a profound get-together.
I can't imagine.
Naomi, having done this film and been Whitney, can
you listen to Whitney now?
I had to take a break, I won't lie, because I was obviously really
immersed in the world.
So I came home indefinitely was like, all right, Whitney,
I will give you a second.
But now, I actually listen to it to remember some
of the moments I had filming.
Like, it was such a formative time in my life and in my career that
I look back on it fondly.
Well, congratulations, and you can see Naomi
in I Wanna Dance With Somebody from Boxing Day.
So on Christmas Eve, I got to watch yours.
And the day after, I have to watch yours.
In the States, you don't call Boxing Day anything, do you?
We think Boxing Day is when the families finally break
out the fisticuffs to work out their problems.
Well, often, it is.
Right, good news, murder mystery lovers.
Richard Osman
has written a new book, The Bullet That Missed.
It is the third in The Thursday Murder Club series.
Tell us about this one. Same cast of characters?
Same group of people, four detectives in their seventies.
They all live together in a retirement community and look
over old, unsolved cases.
One day there's a real murder, they team up and they solve it
and we're on the third book now.
This one, every time I release a new one,
I think this is going to be where people find me out but so far,
this seems to be the most popular of all, which is lovely.
And lots of this is set in the world of television, funnily enough.
Some of it is in the world of local news.
You know any time you see any local news, wherever
you are in the country, there's always a guy
in his seventies and a woman in her twenties.
So this is about the guy in his seventies who Joyce,
who is our hero, essentially has a crush on.
And so they start investigating. There's loads in telly.
There's even a quiz show in there as well.
You've got to write what you know.
So you wrote the first two kind of under the radar, in a way.
This is the first one you've written knowing what an enormous
hit the franchise is.
So did that give you confidence, or did it freak you out a bit?
I kind of loved it, is the truth.
I've had a whole career in television.
Guys, you know you have an awful lot of flops if you're in
a creative business.
Ah, speak for yourself.
LAUGHTER.
Not over here, baby. Not over here.
Did you not see the submarine thing she did?
I have had a lot of flops in my career.
And one of the nicest things you can have is a hit.
When I'm writing, I'm just in the room, the door is shut
and all I've got is the cat on the keyboard and I'm trying
to write, so then I'm with the characters.
But knowing that people are going to read it and knowing
that people want to read it and find out what happens to
the characters is a joy.
And Joyce, who writes the diary in this, I find myself,
when I'm writing, as she's writing, I think, "Joyce, people love you.
You're doing a great job".
It is so lovely to be in her brain.
And how does Mother Osman feel about book number three?
Yeah, she lives in a retirement community and it was when I would
meet the people there who had these incredible life
stories that I thought,
"I've got to team you up as detectives".
She is fine with it now.
The first one, she was worried for legal reasons that
I was going to be talking about her friends.
But any time I visit now, they're very much on board.
When I go down there, they all pitch me ideas for murders.
Honestly, they're terrible.
She has two friends - honestly, they're called Peggy and Sue.
And I was down there recently because we were filming
for the ten o'clock news.
They were all just being interviewed for the ten
o'clock news, all dressed up,
line dancing, and Peggy said to me, "Oh, one second.
You know, there's a concert hall here and they're thinking
of shutting it down and turning it into flats.
That could be a plot, couldn't it?"
And I was like, "Yeah, probably".
And then Sue could see maybe I wasn't buying it and she said,
"There's a balcony at the end of the concert hall.
You could push someone off that and kill them".
Yes! Now we have a plot.
So she's exec-producing the new movie.
Suranne, you're halfway through this, is that right?
Actually, can I have that?
LAUGHTER.
You're hiding it. Because you want it.
No, I just want Richard to sell books.
OK, I'll buy the book.
My husband could buy it for Christmas.
There's a Waterstones on Piccadilly.
Exactly.
I think Suranne can have one.
Thank you. I've read one and two.
I love Joyce.
When she does her diary entries, oh!
I love Elizabeth, she's very kick-ass,
but I'm more of a Joyce fan.
Would you be a Peggy or a Sue?
I'd be a Peggy, I guess, if I'm Joyce.
Can I play the person who's pushed off the balcony?
Listen, there's a role for all three of you in the movie.
This is why we do Graham's show.
As long as you can do cockney.
Oh, watch this. Let me be that American.
TERRIBLE COCKNEY ACCENT: Well, I think I'll get me
to the church on time.
APPLAUSE.
You're Ron.
Next up, the yearly panto.
Tom, you're also turning novelist. You've got a book out next spring?
It will be out in May, yes.
It's called The Making Of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece -
write what you know.
Yeah.
Because I've read a number of books about the making...
No one knows how we do this. Everybody assumes they know.
It is so cockamamie, the way you get a movie
from somebody's idea to the finished screen.
I invested about 480 pages and about nine quarts of blood.
Oh, it's so hard to write.
Everybody says, "How do you write books?"
I write books like this.
So serious.
"But if that happened on a Tuesday, that couldn't happen on the Monday".
Oh!
Do you forget the characters' names sometimes?
I'm a professional author.
I had a guy that was named Diego, and at page 300 I changed his name
to Francisco and no-one knew.
Someone said, "Who is Francisco?" "Oh, Diego, sorry about that".
Proofreaders are the best people in the world because if you make any
mistake at all, their job is to pick it up.
They're so brilliant.
Everything, like, what time a train is to London.
They'll say, "By the way, there's no longer a trolly service
on that train" and you think, "Oh, that's useful".
The only time I got in trouble was...
They checked everything, and in the first book
I talked about the Waitrose in Tunbridge Wells, right?
And no one thought to check that,
because of course Tunbridge Wells has got a Waitrose.
They haven't!
LAUGHTER.
They haven't got a Waitrose.
And if you think they were furious before about that, after I wrote...
And in this new book, I send Joyce to Tunbridge Wells a day trip.
And when she's there, she went,
"I'm sure I read somewhere that there was a Waitrose here".
Apologies to the people of Tunbridge Wells.
Where will Suranne be able to shoot the next season?
Lidl.
Oh, lovely.
And Richard, I see at the back of the book, you can
pre-order book four.
You can.
I mean, I wouldn't, because I haven't finished it yet.
But you can.
Am I right in thinking you're having a little pause
with The Thursday Murder Club?
Yeah, so that will be four and I will go back to it,
but I want to write a different sort of crime thing, slightly more
Da Vinci Code-esque.
There are certain things The Thursday Murder Club can't do.
They can't...
LAUGHTER.
They can't kick down doors into warehouses and shoot people,
and I'd quite like to write a book where they do that.
So I've got a book called We Solve Murders which is
about a detective duo
who traverse the world solving murders that no one else can.
A man and a woman? A man and a woman.
A saucy American and a plucky Brit, by any chance?
Hold on a minute.
I could be the assistant.
I'm afraid Graham is playing the cop.
Yeah, right.
Book three of The Thursday Murder Club series,
The Bullet That Missed, is out now!
Excellent.
Honestly, why can't I preorder book five and six right now?
I want to put pressure on you.
Keep typing.
Right, it is time for music.
This singer-songwriter had one of the albums
of the year with Hold The Girl.
Here performing the title track, it is Rina Sawayama!
# Reach inside and hold you close
# I won't leave you on your own
# Teach me the words I used to know
# Yeah, I forgot 'em long ago
# So hold the girl
# Hold the girl
# Hold that girl
# Sometimes I get down with guilt
# For the promises I've broken to my younger self
# Moving on, maybe I never will
# Cos I left you spinning on the carousel
# Been living without you
# Reach inside and hold you close
# I won't leave you on your own
# Teach me the words I used to know
# Yeah, I forgot them long ago
# I wanna remember
# She is me and I am her
# So hold the girl
# Hold the girl
# Hold that girl
# Sometimes I just wanna run away
# Leave behind that old me, start again
# Then I'll remember who I'm really made of
# And she's been hide-and-seeking, waiting all alone
# Been living without you
# Been living without you, oh
# Reach inside and hold you close
# I won't leave you on your own
# Teach me the words I used to know
# Yeah, I forgot 'em long ago
# I wanna remember, she is me, and I am her
# So, hold the girl, hold the girl
# Reach inside and hold you close
# I won't leave you on your own
# Teach me the words I used to know
# Yeah, I forgot 'em long ago
# Reach inside and hold you close
# I won't leave you on your own
# Teach me the words I used to know
# Yeah, I forgot 'em long ago
# I wanna remember, she is me, and I am her
# So, hold the girl, hold the girl #.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE.
Wow.
Rina Sawayama, everybody!
And her amazing dancers.
Come on over.
Wowser.
Amazing.
That was so good, thank you very much.
Come and meet everyone.
Richard, Naomi, Suranne and Tom.
Wowser, wowser, wowser.
That is something else, wow.
Thank you.
A great performance.
And that is off the album of the same name.
Congratulations on the success of the album.
Thank you so much.
We saw the amazing choreography there.
And you can do that rarest thing, sing
and dance at the same time.
Oh, God, just about, thank you.
You're young.
But the choreography has now got you into the world of film?
Yes.
So I've always shot music videos and kind of part-directed it
with the view that I wanted it to be
my acting portfolio.
So I've purposefully written characters
So I've purposefully written characters for myself and there's
a video called XS and Bad Friend
where I do some stunt choreography
and I pretend I'm like a robot breaking down, all that kind of
stuff.
And then I got a call from Chad Stahelski,
who is the director of John Wick.
Yeah.
Naomi's like, "Get out of town!"
That's what I felt like.
"And I was just stupid Whitney Houston!"
Shucks!
And then, so I got a call and I was like,
"Why the hell does he want to speak to me?"
And he goes, "I've seen your music videos and I've got the
perfect role for you, do you want to come to Berlin
and shoot for the new John Wick?"
I know! I've done it, yeah.
It was the hardest thing I've ever done.
That is easy compared to John Wick.
And are you fighting Keanu or fighting with Keanu?
Oh, a secret!
Am I a goodie or a baddie, who knows?
Are you in John Wick 5?
Is there a John Wick 5?
I know I'm in John Wick 5 and I haven't seen you on set,
but...
And you're in the middle of a tour. It's a world tour.
Yeah, it's my first world tour.
I released my debut album in 2020, so couldn't
tour for two years.
Now it's all opened up, going touring.
Doing Australia, New Zealand and Japan, and some of
my family have never seen me live.
And this is family in Japan?
Yeah, most of my family live in Japan.
So they've been watching your videos and thinking, "She looks good".
They're like, "This is going pretty well".
Yeah, but have you written any novels?
Next on my list.
You know she will.
She'll probably crank out two of them on the world tour.
Just on the tour bus.
"Yeah, I finished one.
It's a bestseller".
Congratulations on everything.
Thank you so much for that spectacular performance.
Rina Sawayama, everybody!
So good.
Thank you so much.
And that is nearly it.
Before we go, just time for a visit to the big red chair.
Who is there?
Hello!
You've amused yourself.
Wondering how I got here.
Oh, calm down, you'll be fine. What's your name?
Alice. Hello, Alice.
Do you know Alice?
No.
Where are you from?
Originally Manchester, but live down here now.
Oh, I might do.
What do you do down here, Alice?
I work in project management for the NHS.
OK, very good. Suddenly very hard to flip now.
"I do something very good to help people,
don't flip me".
Off you go with your story, Alice, good luck.
So I was about 16, watching the Ryder Cup
with my dad, and Tiger Woods kind of brings the ball
to his lips, his golf ball,
and then he said, "You can't do that at the local golf club any
more because they've put insecticide down".
So I was like, "OK, nice titbit".
And then we go to the golf club later and I'm sat
with my dad's mates, who are all older and I don't know
what to say to them.
And I just came out with, "Oh, I heard you're not
allowed to lick your balls any more".
So the old men all erupt.
I sit there going red, and my dad doesn't
look at me for a week.
You can walk, Alice!
Go on.
OK, that really is all we've got time for.
If you want to go in the red chair and share a story, you can.
Contact us via our website at this very address.
Please say a huge thank you to all of my guests
tonight - Rina Sawayama!
Richard Osman!
Naomi Ackie!
Suranne Jones!
And Mr Tom Hanks!
Graham Norton!
We'll be back on New Year's Eve for a Hogmanay chat with Cabaret
stars Callum Scott Howells and Madeline Brewer, comedian Romesh
Ranganathan, Lioness captain Leah Williamson,
comedy great Hugh Laurie,
Top Boy's Micheal Ward and Oscar-winner Olivia Colman!
Have a very happy Christmas.
Good night, everybody, bye-bye!