Writer and talk show host Graham Norton talks to Oliver about his new novel Frankie, being a part-time writer, loving his current job, his early show So Graham Norton and why he can't bear to watch it now and so much more. Listen back above.

As an interviewee, chat show host Graham Norton does not disappoint. In a long chat with Oliver Callan, the presenter and novelist alternates between snippets about his latest book and anecdotes about his early career presenting an adult-themed show on Channel 5 - which he says nobody watched, breaking the caravan in Father Ted and losing patience with diners while working as a waiter in London. It’s all in the full interview, which you can enjoy by clicking play above.

We think of Graham Norton as a Cork man, but the chat show host was born in Dublin and admits he doesn’t know the city well, having left at the age of two. Graham says he spent a full week being a 'tourist’ in the capital last year, and Oliver wanted to know what grabbed him about Dublin. Browsing around the Hugh Lane Gallery, Graham said one of the paintings there resonated with the themes of his new novel, Frankie. He explains the connection between the picture and the woman at the heart of his new novel:

"You know the way you go over to see who painted that? It was a woman called Grace Henry – I’ve never heard of her. I read the little blurb, and it was Paul Henry’s wife. And I just thought, that happens so often in history, where the women - although just as talented - kind of vanish."

This is what happens to Frankie Howe, the central character of Graham’s 5th novel; a woman of talent who has lived a significant life, experienced love, pain, bravery and friendship, but who rarely has the chance to be the star of her own life story, Graham says.

As the book begins, Frankie is an elderly Irish woman living in London, being cared for by a young Irish man called Damian. They get to chatting and Frankie’s life story unfolds. Frankie was an exceptional chef and yet, as Graham hints, her brilliance was eclipsed by others; in a similar way to that of Grace Henry or Josephine Hopper, an artist who was married to the American painter Edward Hopper:

"Again, Edward Hopper’s wife, possibly more well-known when they got together, and she introduced him to galleries and things and she just sat on her hands for the rest of her life. And that happens to Frankie in this book."

Norton recreates the high-octane world of fine dining in the novel, drawing on upon the 8 years he spent as a waiter in London while at drama school and in the days before his big break. After an enthusiastic start, he says he became less and less fond of the job:

"I was terrible to customers. I started off being good. Because I was this young little Irish boy serving people. So I was so friendly and nice – I would do that thing, I would go up to them and say ‘Would you like dessert?' and they’d go 'No, thank you.' And I’d go 'Are you sure?', like I was doing some American hard sell - I was just being polite. People don’t mean no – 'Are you sure?', and they went 'Back off – we just told you we don’t want dessert!"

When Graham’s Mrs Doyle-like encouragement of patrons to indulge their sweet tooth fell on deaf ears, he says he gradually ditched the friendly banter:

"At the end of 8 years, I just needed to be taken away – I was just vicious by the end; I’d lost all patience with people."

As well as drawing on his experience as a waiter, this latest novel also features characters from an Irish Protestant background like his own. Graham says it's taken him years to draw on this well of inspiration, as he initially wanted to keep his own persona out of his writing - to let the novels exist on their own terms:

"I didn’t want the name on the cover of the book to be reading over people’s shoulders. So I tried to extricate myself as much as I could. It wasn’t show business, it wasn’t telly, there are no gay characters, they’re not funny books. And that was all deliberate. That was all to remove any idea of ‘Graham Norton’ from these books."

In Frankie, he delves into themes that directly affected the communities he was a part of, both as a child and as a young adult, including the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and he says this book is also a departure in terms of its emotional depth:

"The difference with this book is that I lean more into emotion than into plot."

The character Frankie Howe has a very tough start in life and while she experiences love and success, she also faces enormous challenges. Graham says it has taken him until his 5th book to grapple with a story like Frankie’s:

"I guess before this book, I didn’t have the confidence to that, I kind of thought I couldn’t do that. Finally we are here."

Graham Norton will be back hosting his usual chat show at the end of this month and he says he is grateful for the way his ‘day job’ facilitates all of this other pursuits – writing, wine production and entertaining with his vegan husband among them. He is reminded of the words of the late presenter Dale Winton of Supermarket Sweep fame who said "Never quit the hit":

"The chat show gifts me the rest of my life. These books happen because I have the chat show. The wine I do happens because I have the chat show. Everything else is because I have the chat show. That’s my proper job."

Graham says that there is a time in his life when he was a very different kind of presenter, bolstered by the courage he developed as a stand-up comedian. Nowadays, he says he wouldn’t even use clips from his old show So Graham Norton in his current book tour:

"I’ve been looking at old clips from the show and I thought I’d show lots of old clips but I can’t watch them – they’re just unbearable!"

Graham says he still loves the presenting job, but he has no illusions that it could end if people stopped watching. If that happens, he'll still count himself lucky to have been a TV host since 1998, when his zany, adult-themed comedy chat show So Graham Norton first aired:

"It’s that thing of looking back - I’m in my 60s, If the chat show stopped tomorrow, how lucky am I, that I got to do it for so long?"

Graham Norton’s novel Frankie is out now, published by Coronet Books.

You can watch Graham as Father Noel Furlong in Father Ted – every episode is available here on RTÉ Player.