Anxious introvert who changed the late-night landscape

In the two months since James Corden began his chat show on America's CBS network, he has won positive reviews and a modest but appreciative audience for his cheerful mix of games, songs, sketches and fluffy celebrity interviews. Corden's Late Late Show is broadcast at 12.30am each weekday, but is so wholesome and unthreatening it could as easily be broadcast at 11 in the morning. Then there's David Letterman, who retired from network television last week after 33 years behind the talk-show desk. At various times the veteran broadcaster has been described as brilliant, annoying, polarising, difficult and beloved. Nobody has ever called him wholesome or unthreatening.