Claudia Winkleman has been on a journey. After a decade spent bouncing around the BBC, in 2004 she landed a plum gig anchoring the Strictly Come Dancing companion show, It Takes Two. From there, her ascent has been dazzling: promotion to Strictly proper, presenting three seasons of The Great British Sewing Bee, and, finally, national treasure status with The Traitors. When she announced her Strictly departure back in October last year, the question was not whether she’d get another gig, but what it would be. The answer? The Claudia Winkleman Show, a lavishly backed new primetime celebrity chat show.
“I’m so nervous I just need to touch people,” Winkleman remarks at the outset of her show’s first episode (which is not a joke about the BBC’s historic issues). But she doesn’t seem excessively skittish as she introduces her first slate of guests: Hollywood actor Jeff Goldblum, comedy legend Jennifer Saunders, West End diva Vanessa Williams, and TV comic Tom Allen. Though Goldblum and Saunders are always good value (if a touch overexposed) on the chat show circuit, the lineup feels a bit underwhelming for a series launch. And the announced guest list for next week – comedians Joanne McNally and Guz Khan, as well as former One Directioner Niall Horan – suggests that the booking team aren’t necessarily getting buy-in from American PRs.
