‘He had a unique ability to be human’: late-night TV says goodbye to Stephen Colbert

The Late Show, and its much-loved host, will bid farewell this week after a controversial cancellation leaving behind a challenging TV landscape

Hugh Jackman sang a parody of Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline. Bette Midler performed a satirical rewrite of Wind Beneath My Wings. John Lithgow wrote and recited a poem entitled The Mighty Colbert. Jake Tapper hand delivered a painting of Colbert as Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. And Jimmy Fallon offered a pointed take on Frank Sinatra’s My Way: “And now the end is near/ And so you face the final curtain/ But Trump, he made it clear/ He wants you gone/ Of that we’re certain.”

A roll call of celebrities have paid pilgrimage to the Ed Sullivan Theatre in New York in recent months to join a long goodbye to CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, honouring a voice that will be sorely missed from the national conversation when the lights go dark on 21 May.