I stopped watching after hearing his bullshit, I'm guessing there's not much reason to watch the rest.

No, she only joked about arranging her own children's marriages considering how great she suggested it all sounds.

I wonder if she would have made a similar joke had some middle-aged man been extolling the virtues of arranged marriages, or what her response would have been had such a man made the same joke she did about choosing his daughters' partners.

Somehow I doubt it.

What a diabolical show this has become.

The usual lazy Trump/Farage opening and misandric anti-male crap.

When did the show become so sneering and liberally elite?

Thank god Jonathan Ross is back tomorrow - with proper guests as well.

Ah, if only you'd bothered to read what I actually said.

It's not about arranged marriages per se. There is nothing wrong with an arranged marriage if both parties are happy and agreeable to it. You should not assume that all arranged marriages are conducted against the wishes of the couple (or even one of them).

The critical factor is not whether a marriage is "arranged" or not - it is whether the bride and the groom are both agreeable to enter into it. I know of a few young couples who entered into arranged marriages. They did so happily and in the full knowledge that their intended husband/wife was completely agreeable too. They were happy with the choice made but knew that they could refuse or even change their mind beforehand.

By all means criticise marriages which are conducted under duress, but that is not what was being discussed on the show with Nadia. Hers was an arranged marriage which she and her husband agreed to and it has turned out to be an extremely happy one.

A hideous programme that rounded off the night's unpromising entertainment which seems nowadays to be every night with the BBC, the other channels closely following suit. We seem to be in an age of a severe lack of talent, in this current tunnel there doesn't seem to be any sense of light. Or talent... x.

I read and understood everything you said, thanks. Everything I wrote still stands regardless.

Why not any more though?

There can be a fine line between arranged and forced. I know of someone who had an "arranged" marriage who was pretty much pressured into it.

Yeah, I stopped watching after Perry started sounding off. I don't know what the ratings will be - but they must be pretty low.

I want the guests to draw me in - not repel me

Well, it's a pity you choose to remain so blatantly opposed to the fact that some people are happy to enter an arranged marriage and some make a genuine success out of it and are very content with their spouse. It's really not for you or anyone else to make a blanket judgment that these people are exploited or oppressed, when in a lot of cases they are neither.

I'm all for endorsing women's rights when people have been exploited and forced into things against their will but I don't assume that all arranged marriages are exploitative or unwelcome in the way that you appear to.

Your assumption of arranged marriage being indicative of coercion is a fallacy. That's not to say that it doesn't happen - and it is right to condemn coercion of any sort - but you cannot apply that assumption to all arranged marriages.

Yep. Ms Toksvig bigs-up Nadia as a wonderful female role model .... seconds later Nadia recounts her arranged marriage. Sandy looked distinctly uncomfortable suddenly on that couch

This thread confirms my fears about last night's line-up, I can confidently delete the recording without wondering what I might have missed.

I'm all for Grayson Perry dressing like a woman but he looks like his make-up was done by a possessed demon doll , he could replace that puppet they have in the Saw movies .

Nadiya and Busted were good, but overall the poorest show probably in its history.

I'd rather it was just them (Hussain and Busted) having fun and sharing stories rather the hateful misandry spewing from Norton, Perry and Toksvig.

Such a dip in quality from it's heyday on BBC2 and very early days replacing Friday Night with JR.

That was probably the most irritating talk show episode I've ever seen. The only bona fide star on it, Fisher, could barely get a word in, while some person who won a baking contest and some bloke who makes pots dominated the proceedings with their amazing egomaniacal chunterings. Perry seemed to be oblvious of the fact that Mary Wollstonecraft made the only pertinent point about gender he cited more than two centuries before he did, and everything else he pronounced on as though he was the first to have thought it has either been a staple on A level courses for decades or has been dismissed as nonsense, but on and on he shouted, like he was some kind of genius. Ironic that the one masculine trait he didn't seem to want to renounce was that arrogant desire to dominate the conversation. If he didn't cross dress he would never have had a TV career, but my god he loves himself.

The baker also seems to have convinced herself she's one of the wittiest people on the planet. How nice of the preening activist Toksvig to decide to treat Islam's attitude to women and marriage as a nice fluffy source of amusement.

It was surely the smuggest, saddest, most irritating episodes ever, and Norton has really lost the plot.

The only surprise was that Perry didn't try to do the red chair as well - it must have been torture for him to have to endure someone else talking for a minute or two.

Yeah. Women didn't have political rights back then, either - and some claimed they accepted subservience 'of their own accord' and actively campaigned AGAINST the suffrage movement. I don't quite see what your point is, unless you think we took a wrong turn historically and you yearn for the good old days.

I'm just not willing to praise and normalize an outdated cultural practice that results in misery and exploitation for women and girls around the world, including the UK, and which had thankfully pretty much died out in the UK until its recent re-importation.

Just because a nice, smiley woman in a headscarf comes on Graham Norton and declares how well things worked out in her particular circumstances doesn't erase the fact that the practice has caused misery for millions of women worldwide over the years or that its near eradication from British society was considered a victory for feminism and equal rights.

I simply found the whole spectacle of arranged marriages being praised and fetishized on a prime time talk show, while women suffer worldwide under the yoke of such arrangements, frankly, grotesque.

I think that is the real pity.

Really enjoyed that

Grayson Perry was great, a lot more interesting than the hollywood movie-pluggers that normally appear on the show. The guests interacted well, one of my favourite GN episodes.

I agree with every word.

The Norton show has ALWAYS sneered at people. It used to do it a lot more.

Also a lot of Graham's jokes used to be extremely misogynistic.

Not like the good old days? With super talent filling our screens, like Mike and Bernie Winters, Anita Harris, Lulu, Cilla, Barbara Woodhouse, Freddie parrot face junior, Rolf, Rita Webb, Cannon and Ball etc etc. In those days they really knew the meaning of talent and non-stop entertainment

I think you are describing marriage in general.

Now that's sarcasm.

I watched this last night and found the background noise of someone with a breathing problem out me off. Did anyone else hear it. My OH is partially deaf and he could hear it after I said about it, he also has tinnitus so wasn't sure if was him at first.
I tried to work out who it was and thought that Carrie Fisher had a bit of a problem. Someone put me out of my misery please, sad that someone has a problem but it put me off listening to them talking at times as the rasping kept creeping in. Bet CF enjoyed saying about Princess Margaret and her Dad, I take it she meant Eddie Fisher.

That was Carrie Fisher breathing heavily due to her nose collapsing from drug use.

Thank you, at least we weren't going mad in our house last night and hearing noises!! I thought I knew a lot of celeb gossip but missed that one.