Quick-witted Irish TV presenter and comedian Graham Norton likes to spring surprises on his guests and his audiences – and the Lord of the Dance, Michael Flatley, provided the ideal opportunity to pull off something special.
Flatley was appearing on Norton’s show to promote his 2015 Lord of the Dance tour and to talk about his retirement. The interview followed a predictable pattern until Norton asked him whether it frustrated him that so many people thought it funny to do mock Irish dancing.
Flatley said he didn’t like to judge people and everyone should be allowed to do as they want.
Norton then said: “Sometimes people just pretending to do Irish dancing does look like Irish dancing.”
Flatley replied: “It can yeah, you’re not wrong there.”
As if to prove his point, Norton then approaches two people in the audience and gets them to do some impromptu dancing. They’re not too bad but there’s much more to come. Norton then decides he wants to get a whole row of people up dancing.
Slowly and sheepishly, the audience members stand up. What happens next took everyone by surprise and turned out to be the big highlight of the show.
It’s hard to imagine that Flatley wasn’t in on the surprise, although if he was, he didn’t give anything away.
Judge for yourselves. Here’s the video from the Graham Norton Show from BBC TV.
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Written by Andrew Moore