Madonna and Graham review – It’s ‘gay heaven’ when Kylie arrives | television

toOndon, May 26. Tower Bridge spans the River Thames, like Madonna in Like the Virgin. Piccadilly lights. Ray of light feelings. Graham installed him in a black cab. (Forget Norton: such is the superpower of tonight’s subject that its mere presence expels any need for epithets.) To all of this – London, the dance floor, Graham, you, me, the universe – Madonna whispers “Thank you for coming.” I feel so free. And so it begins.

The openings must be big to accommodate the “incomparable Madonna” – as a BBC press release calls her for this special – now that we’ve begun the final countdown to the release of her new album Confessions II. This is quite the ruling. Nice and important. Equal parts out and gay.

“I’m always nervous to meet Madonna,” laughs Norton as he drives to Coco, where Madonna played her first UK concert in 1983 and where she returned to release Confessions on a Dancefloor in 2005. Watch archive footage of girls loving curls and world-ruling quotes as Graham steps up to meet “the great lady herself.” The film switches to slow motion as he enters the dramatic red stage. There, alone on the lighted stage, is Madonna.

“Madonna while I live and breathe! Get back on the dance floor!” He made the announcement, and it’s nowhere near as good as his first appearance on The Graham Norton Show in 2012, when he lost it and shouted “Holy Mother of God, it’s Madonna!” They stand on stage and make some sweet small talk about Madonna finding her community on the dance floor. “That’s how I started,” she says. “Dancing is in my DNA.” And so it was the Queer Mingo Club in Detroit in the 1970s. “The door opened and there were two beautiful shirtless men wearing skates, ties and shorts, carrying a drink on a tray. I was like wow, we’re not in Kansas anymore! Everyone was so free.”

It was Christopher Flynn, the ballet teacher who changed her life in Michigan, who took her to dance. “The first gay man I met,” she says. Norton: “Not the last…” Madonna: “Definitely not the last!”

It starts well. There’s Madonna in her big time, wearing shoulder-padded silk, fingerless gloves and custom Yves Saint Laurent pumps from the Confessions tour. (Not the original one, the one stolen at Coachella, he continued.) And there’s Norton. You look astonished. And ask silly questions. But, you know, don’t we all?

After an uneventful elevator ride captured on security camera, a strangely curvy midsection emerged. With special guest, Confessions One and Two producer Stuart Price. (The second special guest is…Holy Mother of God…Kylie.) They listen to sections of the new tracks and do some annoying moves. The influence of Detroit techno and Chicago house has been discussed on Confessions II, which was made at Price’s Maida Vale studio over the course of a year. Norton, perhaps stymied by the artist’s level of control, Price’s presence, or just the Madonna-like attitude, can’t seem to stop asking the corny questions. Such as: “Who goes first to the studio?” Or “Where did you do it?” [this song] Come from?” Madonna answers with an incredulous expression: “It came from my soul.”

That’s not to say that an interview focusing on Madonna’s creative process wouldn’t be great. Or actually, refreshing because the men who have interviewed her over the decades — all of whom this superfan has watched — haven’t tended to bother with her music too much. It’s just that this isn’t it.

The problem partly lies in the format – the interview is interspersed with guest appearances, photos, stills and confessionals 2 – film clips. The classic two-parter would have yielded a more intimate and entertaining conclusion, but TV producers seem to have decided that we no longer have the attention span for such things.

So he went back downstairs for a drink. Who serves at the bar? Kylie! Another weird bit follows in which Kylie produces her version of Madonna’s first LP, Madonna admits she was a bit jealous of Kylie “because she was so cute and I think my ex-husband at the time liked her”, and Norton feels as if he “died and went to gay heaven”.

I’m afraid the tales of fans whose appetite for Madonna is currently at a fever pitch pale in comparison to Interview magazine’s more provocative, naughty, gay interview with Mel Ottenberg. Which, unfortunately for the BBC, also dropped this week. But we learn about her feelings about London. How she wrote a new song about her late brother Christopher immediately after speaking to him: “He was in a lot of pain. I knew it was near the end… I went upstairs and wrote a song.” And how her daughter Lola, with whom she recorded a duet for Confessions 2, “was very secretive about working with me” and “struggled with these feelings during adolescence.”

In addition to promotional tours, Madonna has planned “something bigger for the summer.” Norton: “In this country?” Madonna: “It could be.” Hmmmm. With that, she chides Norton for always having to “know it all,” and once again we’re leaving no one the wiser, which is probably what one of the best-selling artists in history would love.