TELEVISION personality Graham Norton has branched out into fiction with his debut novel Holding.

Described as ‘darkly funny’ by its publisher, Hodder, the book is set in rural Ireland, “in the sort of places I grew up in” according to Norton.

The plot revolves around a discovered cadaver, with many in the village believing it belongs to a man who disappeared years ago after jilting two women.

Norton is keen to stress that none of the protagonists actually exist, but admits “there are various stories in the book I heard growing up as my family moved around Ireland.”

Below, he expands on his new career direction and the television chat show for which he is renowned.

Norton is in conversation at Theatre Royal Brighton next Sunday.

Why did you decide to write a novel?

I’ve just always wanted to write one and I thought it was about time I stopped talking about it and actually did it. I worried it might be like the worst homework ever, that I would hate doing it, but I didn’t at all.

I just loved spending days writing, although I made sure that if I was on my own all day, that I organised social stuff for the evening. So I went out a lot.

In your head, is writing novels a potential new career or just a one-off?

I’d love to think I could do more writing, but of course people have to like the first book before I’d get a chance to write another one. Then I’d have the problem of doing it all over again, too, and people liking that one. In an ideal world, though, the answer is yes.

Does it ever cross your mind to not work, since you could afford not to?

I suppose with a job comes validation – the feeling that you are doing a job well enough to get paid for it, and the fact that a job means you have to be somewhere and that somebody cares where you are.

If I were to work less on TV at some point, I’d really want another purpose. Maybe writing novels could be it. I know a few people who don’t work out of choice and I will say I don’t think it’s good for them. They go a bit bonkers.

This past year on your television show you have had a few more serious chats, like with Charlie Sheen...

We wanted it to be a focused interview on the stuff he’d done – and he’d done some terrible things – and how is he now? I think it’s weird that he still says that it wasn’t mental health issues, that it was to do with just the drugs.

We wanted him to talk generally along the lines of: ‘It was all awful. You know, what was going on in your head?’ What I like about him is that he owns it: he goes ‘I was a huge f*** up.’ I think if we do a few more serious chats now and again we can get away with it, because people will think, ‘Well, next week it will be funny again.’

Who are your favourite guests?

I do love Meryl Streep. A lot of stars don’t do a lot of press in Britain because the American press is all oily and ‘oh thank you so muuuuuuccchh’ and the British are much more intrusive, let’s face it.

But I suppose the chat show has been around long enough to show the publicists that we aren’t intrusive.

What can we expect from your talk in Brighton?

I’m really looking forward to appearing in Brighton.

Obviously the focus will be on the novel but I’m sure there will also be time for some tales from the chat show and unnecessary celebrity gossip.

Graham Norton, Theatre Royal Brighton, New Road, Sunday, October 2, 7.30pm, £29, 08448 717650