S20.E10: Carrie Fisher, Grayson Perry, Sandi Toksvig, Nadiya Hussain

[Athena]

Quote

Graham is joined by Star Wars actor and writer Carrie Fisher, talking about her new book The Princess Diarist; artist Grayson Perry, promoting his book The Descent of Man; new QI presenter and comedian Sandi Toksvig; and Great British Bake-Off favourite Nadiya Hussain.

[dubbel zout]

That is a very interesting collection of people. Looking forward to this ep.

[tenativelyyours]

I tuned in mostly for Nadiya and Grayson and always enjoy Sandi.  Carrie Fisher's charm escapes me.  As someone who actually was born after the first series came out and was rather underwhelmed when I finally saw the first time (as a kid it lacked the wow factor, thought later I  could see how incredible it was for its day), I find myself confused by her voice?  Did she have some kind of illness?  Is it smoking/drinking related?  She always had a throaty voice I'm guessing from the movie when she was still young, but now I had a hard time sometimes actually understanding her because she has an odd mix of gurgle and mumble.  Someone told me it was part affectation, that in one of her books she says something about always keeping an overly wry tone was what got and kept the attention of any man she found worthwhile.  I'm not sure I believe that.  Okay I don't believe that.  But her voice is so odd and I wonder how and how long it has gotten this way.

Decent show overall.  Liked the red chair story about the toilet paper.  I was kind of surprised it got to the finish what with the first story/flip.  I was glad the first got flipped, not because it was another bad bladder/bowel story from the sound so of it but also I really hate these people that come on the show get the red chair and then try to be overly clever from the start.  It was such a ploy at being clever in the passive aggressive silence and forcing a prompt. 

[kat165]

I agree about Carrie Fisher. She was difficult to understand. I thought she either had bad dentures or a stroke. I'd never heard of any of the other guests but I really enjoyed them. The Bake-off winner lady was charming.

[fastiller]

I think Carrie Fisher's voice is the way it is due to years of smoking (the roughness) and drugs (the slurring). I was able to understand her, but with a bit of effort 

Sandy is great.  Didn't realize that the UK panel shows had never had a female host.

Grayson Perry is a treasure and I want to have hours-long, late-night conversations with him.

Have yet to watch all of it, so no assessment yet on Nadiya Hussain. [Later edit: Sandy was right: she's transitioned very well into a celebrity. Her story about QE2 & Philip was funny.]

The way that GN allows interaction between the guests is fantastic and part of why his is one of the best talkshows.

Edited December 18, 2016 by fastiller

[Bruinsfan]

I wouldn't even qualify it with "one of," I think Graham runs the best talk show going. I wasn't familiar with either Sandi Toksvig (who reminds me strongly of a co-worker!) or Nadiya Hussein, but both were delights to watch. This couch ensemble really worked well together. And of course Carrie's reaction to her inadvertent double entendre was golden. I also loved the mental picture of 21-year-old Carrie informing her flabbergasted Star Wars castmates that her father slept with Princess Margaret immediately before they meet her.

[dubbel zout]

1 hour ago, Bruinsfan said:

I also loved the mental picture of 21-year-old Carrie informing her flabbergasted Star Wars castmates that her father slept with Princess Margaret immediately before they meet her.

I know! I was wondering if she said anything about it to Princess Margaret, or if PM mentioned it. Heh.

3 hours ago, fastiller said:

I think Carrie Fisher's voice is the way it is due to years of smoking (the roughness) and drugs (the slurring).

Her regular ECT might be a factor as well.

Nadiya was as charming here as she was on the GBBS. Her win really was so, so lovely.

I've only read about Grayson Perry, so I was really interested to hear him. Add me to the list who could listen to him for hours. And his shoes were amazing! Kudos to him for being able to walk in them. I'd fall off them sitting down. 

Sandi Toksvig got the short straw this episode, but I liked what she was able to say.

The toilet-paper story in the Big Red Chair was great. I'd have tossed the first guy out, too, even if he was a New Zealander.

[Mumbles]

When Grayson made the observation that "Fifty Shades of Gray" probably wasn't a big seller in Afghanistan, and Graham turned to the camera and said cheekily, "Good point, well made" it reminded me why I love Graham as a host. He is warm and genial but never chummy or obsequious.

4 hours ago, fastiller said:

 

Grayson Perry is a treasure and I want to have hours-long, late-night conversations with him.

 

Agreed. He had interesting points to make, like the idea of love at first sight, which Sandy disagreed with but in a cheerful way.  And the story about his interaction with the policeman, also funny.

I wish that we got QI here in the US. BBCA ran it for like three weeks a year or so ago. Hulu has some episodes but stopped updating it a while ago.

[Bruinsfan]

2 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

The toilet-paper story in the Big Red Chair was great. I'd have tossed the first guy out, too, even if he was a New Zealander.

I wonder if he followed up on sticking around to give Graham his number...

[kat165]

Dubbel, what is ECT?

[dubbel zout]

Electroconvulsive therapy—it's the preferred term for electroshock therapy.

[Crisopera]

Mumbles  - you can find many episodes (and clips ) from QI on YouTube, including some from this new season.  (I'm a big fan of Sandi Toksvig from the British Whose Line Is It Anyway?)

[kat165]

Thank you, dubbel. I had no idea that electroshock therapy was still being done. I thought it stopped in the early 60's.

[JustaPerson]

It isn't used very often, generally just as a last resort if talk therapy and/or drug therapy aren't effective. 

[attica]

They used it as a plot point a season or two ago in Homeland...  (The stuff you learn from tv!)

Great couch. I'm happy Carrie didn't bring her dog. I adored Grayson's whole outfit. Who knew I needed a trapeze dress with a sequined boom box on the bodice?!

I wonder if they'll cover Eddie Fisher's dalliance with Princess Margaret in a later season of The Crown. ;)

[dubbel zout]

ECT has come a long way. The doses of electricity are a lot smaller and more controlled. Fisher wrote a book, Shockaholic, about her experiences with ECT. It's worth reading if you're interested.

[Bruinsfan]

Yeah, there are cases of suicidal depression where ECT is the only effective treatment. I don't think it's anyone's first resort, but it does still have its uses.

[kat165]

I just saw Carrie Fisher in a cheesy xmas movie that was released 4 yrs ago. Her voice
was still awful, but she was perfectly understandable. I wonder what happened to her
in the past 4 yrs. She sort of sounds out of her mind.

I'm very sad for her that she went through enough to resort to electro-shock.

Thank you, so many, for your comments and insights on ECT. I often learn a lot from
reading this board! Such as now. And I would be interested in reading her book. I've
read some of her very early ones and they were quite humorous although I imagine this
won't be as light.

[peeayebee]

Although Carrie Fisher had a couple of good anecdotes or lines, I wish she hadn't been on the show. It seemed like the other guests were trying their hardness to be nice and receptive to her stories, but she basically seemed just about incoherent, esp in the beginning. I felt she just stood in the way of the others' more interesting stories and personalities.

I knew nothing about Grayson Perry, and I'm still not sure what he's about, but I thought he was intriguing. I'll have to read up on him. 

I've always liked Sandi Toksvig.

Nadiya was an absolute delight. She was wonderful on the baking show, and here she continued to be smart, witty, charming... just great. I loved Sandi's comment about how she's handling celebrity.

[kat165]

I agree with you, peeayebee. Although I didn't know any of the other guests, they all interested me. Carrie makes me very sad. She doesn't seem well/coherant enough to be going on talk shows. She's very diffcult to understand and  & comes off as a complete mess. I feel kind of bad saying this because she seems like a person who is trying to talk their way through a stroke and it makes me feel very intolerant & like I should be more patient/understanding because who know someday that could be me.

[Qoass]

I hate to say it because I've really enjoyed Fisher's previous books, both fiction and non, but I found The Princess Diarist to be lacking.

[kat165]

Qoass, maybe that's cause the PD bk was actually an old diary and not a planned (intentionally written for publication) book? According to Carrie the diary bk was published as is, with no editing.

[Qoass]

Oh, yes, I know:  I just read it.  There are about 30 pages in the middle that are photographs of the actual diary:  free-form poetry, vague musings...  she does have lovely handwriting though.

[kat165]

I like that, lovely handwriting. :) (At least she has that going for her. )

[fastiller]

Carrie Fisher In Critical Condition After Heart Attack]

[Quof]

This is all your fault, talking smack about Princess Leia.

[peeayebee]

I wonder what she was doing in London all this time. I can't remember if she said on the show. Was she on other British shows promoting her book?

[califred]

The article I read she had just finished filming a series she's in.

[kassygreene]

She's somebody's mom in Catastrophe, which I think is an Amazon Prime series.

[theatremouse]

12 hours ago, peeayebee said:

I wonder what she was doing in London all this time. I can't remember if she said on the show. Was she on other British shows promoting her book?

Both a book tour and the series mentioned above were mentioned in most of the articles I read about it.

Edited December 25, 2016 by theatremouse

[attica]

...And she's died.  RIP, Carrie. I fear you got out in the nick of time.

[fastiller]

She wasn't just Princess Leia; nor was she just a memoirist:

Carrie Fisher’s Unsung Legacy as a Script Doctor Extraordinaire

[Qoass]

Quote

This is all your fault, talking smack about Princess Leia.

I'm very, very sorry.  Let me reiterate how much I enjoyed her other work.  And her handwriting.

And in that spirit, let me please share my adoration for Dick Van Dyke, Stephen King and Gloria Steinem in hopes that it will keep them safe from... whatever this is.

[paramitch]

On 12/19/2016 at 9:37 AM, Bruinsfan said:

Yeah, there are cases of suicidal depression where ECT is the only effective treatment. I don't think it's anyone's first resort, but it does still have its uses.

First off, I'm just gutted to have watched and enjoyed this so much last week, and then we get the news about her illness and death just days later (and her poor Mom, Debbie Reynolds)! So tragic, and far too soon.

I really didn't find Carrie difficult to understand here -- she has had a slight slur over the past few years, which I attribute to (I suspect) denture issues as well as to her health/recovery issues -- but I definitely thought she was as sharp and funny as always here. I was glad Gary wasn't onstage (although I'm sure he was backstage), though, because as adorable as he is, he tends to pull focus.

On 12/20/2016 at 8:04 PM, peeayebee said:

Although Carrie Fisher had a couple of good anecdotes or lines, I wish she hadn't been on the show. It seemed like the other guests were trying their hardness to be nice and receptive to her stories, but she basically seemed just about incoherent, esp in the beginning. I felt she just stood in the way of the others' more interesting stories and personalities.

I disagree with this -- I definitely didn't find Carrie a "less interesting story or personality" impeding more interesting others (in fact, the idea kind of gobsmacks me, since it was the antithesis of her in so many ways).

I also didn't feel like anyone was putting up with her or patronizing her in any way. She maybe seemed a little tired, but she was funny and interactive and self-deprecating. If anything, she was a little quieter than usual. She was also always respectful and appreciative of the other couch members. 

On 12/27/2016 at 11:53 AM, fastiller said:

She wasn't just Princess Leia; nor was she just a memoirist:

Carrie Fisher’s Unsung Legacy as a Script Doctor Extraordinaire

Fisher was a terrific writer -- her fiction work I felt was all too often excused as being purely autobiographical, and while it's obvious that she used her life and experiences to fuel her characters, the writing in all of her novels is razor-sharp, snappy, funny, heartbreaking, and evocative. It's really enjoyable fiction, and edgier than it seems. Her memoirs were equally funny and poignant (although for me, somewhat less successful as independent works).

In light of her successful career as a script doctor, it's also been a treat to see her notes on the original "Empire" script for instance -- she does one of my favorite things there, on the pages I've seen, which is that she looks for lines to remove (versus add), or looks to distill a scene down to a simple comment or line.

Meanwhile, I'm absolutely heartbroken at her death this week. I adored Fisher -- as an actress and entertainer, as a writer, and as a tireless advocate for mental health awareness (and for removing the stigma of mental illness and bipolar disorder specifically).  As @dubbel zout and @Bruinsfan have noted, she also helped to dispell the massively outdated stigma of ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) as some sort of torture device (despite how inaccurately it's been portrayed on movies and TV to this day -- "Homeland," I'm looking at you).

ECT can in fact be enormously helpful in helping a select few patients to emerge from incapacitating and devastating depressions when nothing else works. It isn't for everyone (and shouldn't be), but it has been helpful to some and currently has an 86% remission rate when used in patients with such depression scenarios. As Bruinsfan noted, Fisher was a huge proponent of its role in allowing her to return to a functional life after a debilitating depression in her memoir Shockaholic.

I also appreciate Carrie's outspokenness about getting older and about battling sexism, weightism and ageism in Hollywood. She addressed them all with her usual wit, and I think was incredibly important that way.

Anyway, her death is really sad, and this appearance on "Graham Norton" was definitely bittersweet. My thoughts not only go out to Carrie's family (on such a devastating, terrible week for them), but also to Graham, who was close friends with Carrie as far back as the late 1990's (in an interview in 1999 on his prevous show, the two talked about how constantly they e-mailed each other). And here, you may have noticed that Graham referenced having been in Carrie's home (and in her bedroom, hee). The two were genuinely good friends, and I'm so sad that her death occurred almost immediately after his show.

Carrie was the first princess I'd ever seen who rescued herself, who was strong and brave and funny and pushy. She made Leia a female ruler I could believe would be followed unquestionably by people and planets who would never remotely ask about whether her gender should factor into her fitness to rule and lead. And when she returned to the role 40 years later, she rightly called out people who were less than pleased to see their princess get old. Carrie didn't care -- and she made you feel that Leia (now General Organa) was above such pettiness as well.

In the end, despite an often difficult life, no matter what Fisher suffered, she never seemed to lose her capacity for joy, and the world is just so much darker and dimmer without her. 

[fastiller]

Not sure if I can do this on my phone. Thought it would be nice to share here.  

Edit to say: I don't know the artist, it was shared by  Facebook friend.

 

Edited December 29, 2016 by fastiller

[kat165]

Fastiller, it took me awhile to "get" this picture, but when I did I got all choken up. So poignant. Thanks for posting.

[fastiller]

Just found out the name of the artist: Ricky LaChance.  Couldn't quite make it out on the drawing.

[kat165]

Thank you, fastiller.

[paramitch]

@fastiller, I loved that sketch. So poignant. Did you guys see the beautiful "Waiting in the wings" photo of Carrie as a child, watching her mother end a show, posted by Boing Boing and others?