{"id":449798,"date":"2026-04-23T12:05:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T12:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/449798\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T12:05:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T12:05:15","slug":"the-neighbourhood-graham-norton-praised-by-team-behind-itv-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/449798\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Neighbourhood’: Graham Norton Praised By Team Behind ITV Show"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tGraham Norton<\/a> clearly doesn\u2019t do things by halves and he spent a full month living around the corner from contestants on The Neighbourhood<\/a>, ITV<\/a>\u2018s constructed reality series that launches Saturday night.<\/p>\n

\n\tRichard Cowles and John Hay, who run The Neighbourhood co-producers Lifted Entertainment<\/a> and The Garden<\/a> respectively and whose credits include Love Island and Squid Game: The Challenge, revealed that host Norton relocated himself for several weeks. His relocation meant he could be as near as possible to \u201cKeep Your Enemies Close,\u201d the name of the constructed cul-de-sac in which contestants compete in The Neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Neighbourhood is ITV\u2019s latest attempt to go big in Saturday primetime. The show sees varied and diverse households live in different houses along the street and compete in challenges, while at the same time trying to socialize and make friends to stay in the game. The challenges put every neighbor to the limit, as they try and eliminate one another without becoming unpopular enough to get the axe themselves. The winning household will go home with a \u00a3250,000 ($338,000) cash prize. <\/p>\n

\n\tCowles said Norton, a friend of Taylor Swift<\/a> (she previously called him \u201cinsanely charismatic and lovable\u201d) at the peak of his powers who hosts the UK\u2019s most popular late night show and whose book is being adapted by Paramount and FilmNation<\/a>, was initially skeptical. \u201cHe has been quite open about the fact he wasn\u2019t 100% sure at first but the quality of pitch made him change his mind,\u201d said Cowles. \u201cHe felt like it was a truly original idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Hay, Norton\u2019s total commitment to the show, which saw him live around the corner from contestants for a month, was matched by his understanding of the tone, mixing warmth with high drama. \u201cIt\u2019s a delicate matter but he solved it in a stroke by being mischievous and witty but never mean,\u201d added Hay. \u201cBy being there and by being the presence at its heart he set the tone for us perfectly. We feel lucky to have got him inbetween Taylor Swift video shoots.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tHay was of course alluding to Norton\u2019s appearance in Swift\u2019s viral vid for her song \u201cOpalite\u201d alongside the likes of Domhnall Gleeson, Greta Lee and Cillian Murphy, which harked back to Swift\u2019s time on The Graham Norton Show. Hay also points out that Norton\u2019s book Forever Home, which is being adapted<\/a> by Anora studio FilmNation and Mediapro for Paramount UK network 5, is \u201call about dynamics within a family,\u201d playing into his admiration for The Neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

\n\tNorton isn\u2019t doing much press for The Neighbourhood but in progamme notes for the show he said he loved how it \u201cleans into our curiosity about what\u2019s behind closed doors.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tBoard game pitch<\/strong><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\tWith The Neighbourhood, Cowles, Hay and the creative team want to prove that original, noisy Saturday night entertainment is very much alive and kicking.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe idea came from a Lifted Entertainment development meeting in which the question of \u201can environment we haven\u2019t seen\u201d on reality TV before was posed.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe thought that the most relatable environment is basically your street and that led us to conversations about neighbors that annoy us,\u201d added Cowles. \u201cWe thought we would be in rich territory here if we could talk about this for a whole hour.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tCowles wanted to utilize The Garden\u2019s fixed-rig expertise, which is part of the reason Netflix\u2019s Squid Game: The Challenge has been such a hit. In order to \u201ccapture the imagination,\u201d he pitched the show to Hay\u2019s team via a board game with an imaginary street on which was situated ITV commissioners including content chief Kevin Lygo and entertainment boss Katie Rawcliffe. \u201cIt immediately made us smile,\u201d said Hay.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith just six months from greenlight meeting to TX, the race was on to complete the street. Unsurprisingly, the setting proved a challenge. The team travelled up and down the UK, eventually settling on a street in the Peak District, in the north of England, which Cowles said \u201cinformed the tone.\u201d \u201cIt was like if Hollywood tried to do the perfect British village,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe team always wanted to cast in a diverse manner and set about assembling groups of students, families and friends from across the country. They do battle in challenges featuring bins, giant washing lines and plenty of knowhow about their fellow house-dwellers, but at the same time have to stay in each other\u2019s good books in order to avoid being voted the most unpopular by other houses.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe two are in conflict with each other so what was fascinating was to see the ways people play it,\u201d added Hay. \u201cSome went out to win and some went out to play the social game. Both didn\u2019t work in various interesting ways.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tCowles and Hay are quietly confident that The Neighbourhood will find success. They also have high hopes for ITV Studios<\/a>\u2018 ability to sell it abroad. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe local flavor is hopefully the secret of its success and adaptability,\u201d added Hay. \u201cEvery country has the concept of neighbors, so there is relatability, but ours is an idealized version of a British neigbourhood. Each country could adapt that to their own.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Graham Norton clearly doesn\u2019t do things by halves and he spent a full month living around the corner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268],"tags":[434,18,117,15462,19,17,2770,31293,198215,973,198216,25192],"class_list":{"0":"post-449798","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-graham-norton","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-itv","15":"tag-itv-studios","16":"tag-lifted-entertainment","17":"tag-taylor-swift","18":"tag-the-garden","19":"tag-the-neighbourhood"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116453935004590846","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}