Claudia Winkleman has quit her BBC talk show after just one series.
The presenter, who has enjoyed huge success as the host of The Traitors and its celebrity spin-off, said she was “too nervous to enjoy” her eponymous show, which launched earlier this year.
The Claudia Winkleman Show – which arrived in March and ran for just seven episodes – saw her interview celebrity guests in front of a studio audience, with the host chatting to the likes of Lisa Kudrow, Jeff Goldblum, Ralph Fiennes and Guz Khan, among other stars.
Speaking about bringing the show to an end, Winkleman said: “I’m incredibly grateful to the BBC for giving me the opportunity, to the guests who agreed to come and chat to me, and the production team who were simply excellent.
“Sometimes you have to try something to see how it fits, and I realised I was just too nervous to enjoy it. Maybe one day I will give it another try, but for now I already have the best jobs in the world and absolutely love the shows I’m doing.”
Ed Havard, director of entertainment at the BBC, said: “Claudia’s warmth and quick wit made The Claudia Winkleman Show an absolute joy.
“While we loved the show, we fully respect her decision and would like to thank Claudia and the brilliant team at So Television for bringing the series to screen on the BBC.
“As the host of the country’s most-watched show, Claudia will be back on the BBC very soon when The Celebrity Traitors returns later this year, and we can’t wait to see what she has in store for the new band of celebs.”
Winkleman’s career has seen major changes over the past year, as she stepped down from presenting Strictly Come Dancing after 15 years in December.
Her chat show, which was produced by the same company behind The Graham Norton Show and filled the same Friday night slot on BBC One, opened to mixed reviews. The Independent’s Nick Hilton highlighted its “underwhelming” line-up of guests and argued that Winkleman lacked Norton’s “ability to comedically spar” with them.
“Throwing a new chat format straight into primetime (Norton did two years on BBC Two before transferring) is daunting, but The Claudia Winkleman Show has the potential to be a stylish, televised cocktail party,” he wrote at the time. “The ingredients are there – and they have the right mixologist – but they might need to tweak the recipe.”
While an average of 1.5m to 2m viewers tuned into each episode, many felt that there was something missing from the format. Patrick Smith wrote in The Independent in April that it “failed to catch light”, saying that hosting a chat show demands “a particular kind of ruthlessness” as well as “energy, sardonic wit and viral moments”.
Winkleman isn’t the first TV presenter whose chat show has been short lived; Davina McCall’s BBC One show aired for just a few episodes in 2006, with the broadcaster later admitting that it was “the worst mistake of her life”.
Meanwhile, Charlotte Church, Michael McIntyre and John Bishop have all fronted chat shows which have crashed and burned.
As for the BBC chat show slot, Norton is expected to return this autumn with a new series of his TV hit, having reduced the number of episodes he does per year in 2020.
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