It is very Claudia Winkleman to blame the failure of her chat show on herself. Usually when a TV programme flops or gets the heave-ho, the talent associated with it either get defensive and blame the schedule or the concept, or they never mention it again and hope everyone forgets about it.
But this is Winkleman, who has never turned down an opportunity for self-deprecation – when the series was announced last year she said, “I’m obviously going to be awful.” And so while her decision to call time on it, after only seven episodes that began in March, is a shock, her humility, vulnerability, and grace about it is precisely on-brand.
“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,” she said. “Sometimes you have to try something to see how it fits, and I realised I was just too nervous to enjoy it.”
She was too nervous for us to enjoy it either. We are used to seeing Winkleman assured, in control, relaxed at flexing between her witty, playful, sincere and maternal sides however the situation demands it. On her chat show, she was someone different – the gushing, lovable weirdo shtick didn’t feel right. The chemistry with her guests wasn’t quite there, she seemed uncomfortable orchestrating a conversation between multiple big personalities, the flow wasn’t right and the power dynamics felt stilted. It was absent of the authority and jeopardy of The Graham Norton Show, which was the inevitable comparison, given their shared time slot and format and the presenters’ shared reign of British entertainment.
This, I’m afraid to say, was predictable. When others brayed excitedly for the beloved Winkleman – riding high on The Traitors and fresh from the decision to leave Strictly – to have her own show, to me it smacked of a BBC trying to teleport one of their most valuable assets into the chair of the other one. By setting this up as a Graham Norton succession plan, they fatally misunderstood her skill set.
As generation after generation of humbled stars from Davina McCall to Charlotte Church to Lily Allen (yes, there’s a woman problem) have learnt a thousand times over, being a big character, a brilliant presenter, the most popular and clever and sparky person on TV, does not translate to hosting a good chat show. It is not a natural but crowning next step on a career ladder. It is the most fickle and precarious medium of them all.
What we tend to forget in our admiration of Claudia Winkleman is how little of herself she really gives away. That’s part of what makes her exceptional – she hides her ego and her opinions under the armour of a fringe and a fake tan and all that glamorous gothy get-up, and has a scream playing that part in whatever way the programme requires.
Strictly was perfect for this – allowing her to lean into the position of supportive cheerleader, holding the hands of the dancers and celebs at their most raw. On The Traitors, she gets to be sly and intimidating, but still serves as the empathetic matriarch championing everyone along as they – stars and civvies alike – drive themselves mad.
In both cases, her job is to pierce through the tension and emotion of the format with light, clowning, absurd relief. She could play that part freely, without the pressure to manage big personalities at once, steer conversational dynamics, make people look interesting or make people laugh for a full hour.
Winkleman plays the role of supportive, wacky goth in her other gigs – here she has to be the star of the show (Photo: Cody Burridge/BBC/Studio Lambert)All that goes out of the window on a chat show, where your role is not to support, but to conduct. You have to get information out of people, you have to make people seem charming and tell good stories when they just want to promote their new film or stand-up tour,and if you gush too much – and love her though I do, Winkleman does gush – it all just gets a bit bland and simpering. Interviewing, even on a light-entertainment late-night show, requires the person in the hot seat not to care whether their subject likes them or not. And every other job Winkleman has ever done requires people to like her.
Why is Norton any different? Because he’s a comedian. For a very long time he was riotously risqué, and his act relied on risk-taking, innuendo, flamboyance. As he grew more successful, more establishment and more BBC, he toned all that down, but because he’d been the star beforehand he was in a position to judge just how much to pare back and how much pisstaking, banter and repartee he could get away with and still keep Hollywood A-listers at ease.
Winkleman is very funny indeed, but she is not a comedian. The chat show role required her not to tone herself down but to volunteer more of it. When you’ve spent your career concealing your personality and prioritising the job, that’s exposing.
Especially for someone as self-deprecating as Winkleman. Part of her popularity is because she’s a little bit enigmatic, because she doesn’t need to loudly show off so everyone knows she’s the most intelligent person in the room, which I suspect she usually is. There’s probably no-one on live TV with a mind as quick as hers and under that fringe I have no doubt she is not short of bold opinions and spiky questions and conversations as uproarious and inquisitive as anything Norton comes out with.
The difference is, she’s got where she is because she’s prudent about hiding all that – insisting, always, that nobody cares what she thinks and that programmes are not about her. On chat shows, the opposite is true, and you have to show off a bit to give people faith in you and the format. Becoming loudly commanding and dominant would be a major shift to her on-screen personality.
The irony, really, is that Winkleman’s statement calling time on the show demonstrates immense confidence, rather than panic. I am sure that the tepid response to her programme, after so much expectation, was mortifying, and yet now rather than a catastrophe it will be remembered as something she tried, wasn’t right for her, but she hasn’t rule out giving another go at one day. She comes away dignified, and reputationally unharmed because the saga has shown her to be even more human than ever. The chat show didn’t work, but its failure proves Claudia Winkleman really is untouchable after all.
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