I’m obviously going to be awful, that goes without saying, but I’m over the moon they’re letting me try.” Those were the words of Clauda Winkleman, at the end of last year, when it was announced that the BBC would be giving her a self-titled primetime chat show. The Claudia Winkleman Show premiered in March, yet just a few months later, it has been announced that it will not return. After just seven episodes, Winkleman is walking away from her own show.
“Sometimes you have to try something to see how it fits, and I realised I was just too nervous to enjoy it,” she said in a statement today. It was a striking admission from a presenter whose stock had never been higher before she inked the deal. The extraordinary success of The Traitors – in which her dramatic fringe plays an important role – and her sudden departure from Strictly Come Dancing made her next move a hot topic in the television industry. National treasure status beckoned, and there was a murmuring of assent when she was announced as the BBC’s latest chat show host. She combines the easy charm of Michael Parkinson with the quick wit of Jonathan Ross. At least, that was the idea on paper.
Winkleman’s show was not perfect. She opted for a stylish, grown-up set that was short on glitz and left proceedings feeling quite static. Her attempts to engage the audience – a ghost whisperer for Tom Allen, or the sudden appearance of Mr Blobby for Dan Levy – felt stilted and exposed the limitations of putting civilians, or nineties glob monsters, on TV. And while she managed to snag big American stars like Lisa Kudrow and Jeff Goldblum, the bookers seemed to struggle to find international stars willing to trust an untested format. Too many of the guests seemed to be dug out of the BBC’s panel show Rolodex. “The ingredients are there,” I wrote, when reviewing the show back in March, “but they might need to tweak the recipe.” Yet the opportunity to further develop the project has now evaporated, even if Winkleman hopefully claims that one day she might “give it another try”.
In part, this is a brave decision by someone with the star power to make it. Winkleman has proven herself over decades on our airwaves, and if she doesn’t immediately connect with a new project, then there’s no need for her to prolong the agony. It is also a demonstration of just how challenging the chat show format is. Graham Norton is not just a master of it, but also an innovator. His fluid jamboree format is now the default, both in the UK and increasingly in America. In comparison with him (and it is a comparison that is routinely made, even if it’s unfair), Winkleman did seem nervous. Marshalling (and occasionally puncturing) big egos is a job that requires both tact and confidence. At times she seemed surprisingly uneasy, as though she was trapped between a recognition that the show belonged to her, and a fear that she had ceded the power to her guests. A guest as chaotically discursive as Goldblum will test the mettle of any interviewer, and Winkleman appeared a little stupefied.
The BBC has, in recent years, been haemorrhaging talent from its top conversational programming. Whether that’s Melvyn Bragg leaving In Our Time or Gary Lineker departing Match of the Day, the corporation has faced the challenge of maintaining the salience of these shows even in a world increasingly driven by the demands of talent. The enormous success of podcasts and YouTube series has only strengthened the hands of agents demanding more money, more recognition, more influence. In America, the late-night shows are owned and operated by the networks, the hosting seats keenly coveted by the top comedians of each generation. Here, however, the top chat shows are deeply intertwined with their hosts like Graham Norton and Jonathan Ross. This gives enormous power to our top presenters, but it also creates a pressure. The lukewarm reviews for the show, and audience figures significantly less than The Graham Norton Show, must have damaged her immaculate confidence. At times, The Claudia Winkleman Show might have felt like a referendum on Claudia Winkleman herself.
Winkleman will not be short of offers for a quick comeback, and she has another series of The Celebrity Traitors arriving in the autumn. There is a sense too that, given the retrenchment being undergone by the British TV industry, and the BBC in particular, this might have been a judicious moment to jump ship on her own terms, rather than walk the plank when the next set of cost-cutting measures is announced. But having worked diligently through her career, always moving towards an opportunity like this, there is a poignancy to her announcement. Winkleman often makes things seem effortless, but life under the spotlight is rarely truly easy.
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