Claudia Winkleman’s chat show debut feels strangely flat but there’s still hope

The Claudia Winkleman Show got going as its first episode meant to go on: with the newly minted chat show host doing crowd work.

The average BBC viewer might not realise from the muted set-up and dimmed lights, but much is riding on Winkleman’s eponymous show debut. The fringetastic phenom has helmed the Beeb’s two marquee franchises (the castle and the ballroom), and the question now is whether she can conquer the sofa too.

Coming off that high-rating streak, The Claudia Winkleman Show is the disarming star’s blank cheque moment. 

But show guest Tom Allen (also the first episode’s runaway star) summed up the premiere best: ‘It does feel sometimes like I’m in a nursing home.’ 

That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, except when it was. 

Clear effort has been made to set Winkleman’s intimate saloon apart from Graham Norton’s shining, showbiz-forward studio. Smooth jazz soundtracked the show, with lighting from stylish sconces that created a speakeasy effect, but one in which celebs flog their wares.

With no real warm-up, we were straight in with the sofa set: Hollywood’s Jeff Goldblum and Vanessa Williams, as well as national treasure Jennifer Saunders and Allen on the end bit of the emerald velvet settee, absent of back support. As if the comedians didn’t already get short shrift with the seating plan.

It was strange to see Winkleman nervous, but she did admit as much. The anxious grinning was a foreign quality from her unflappable demeanour on The Traitors and Strictly, but the self-deprecation was still there. It was ‘the first and possibly last show’. (Except they’ve already booked big names for next week).

The hour-ish unfolded much like the jazz tunes Goldblum was promoting: winding, with sedate interludes and no clear chorus. This is where Winkleman’s freewheeling ability to get out of the way runs up against the chat show as we know it. 

As the celebrity podcast industrial complex has shown, inane luvvie musings are in no short supply. Being low on ego is commendable, until you’re in a room of people brimming with it. Then, you can get lost in the shuffle.

Winkleman’s laid-back hosting style left the show prone to clumsy moments. Certain questions and anecdotes failed to take off. We paused to observe Goldblum wiggle his ears one at a time, which somehow merited applause and left me wondering what might be on the cutting room floor.

In such moments, it was Allen who saved the day, doing bit after bit from the end of the sofa. Did I look up tickets to the show he was promoting? Yes, I did. Winkleman felt disappointingly static by comparison.

But this was an inaugural outing (when are pilots ever perfect?), and The Claudia Winkleman Show held promise. There were glimmers of those spontaneous celeb interactions – the gold-dust these shows are powered on – like Allen’s mild horror when Goldblum started to read at random from his new novel.

The crowd engagement is where Winkleman has sought to set herself apart from Norton; they fill the void of the Big Red Chair anecdotes, but without that bleak sense that the audience members are court jester puppets for the elite.

In Winkleman’s world, the spectators are just as interesting as the sofa. There was the person who designed the sofa and the one who makes pencils for a living. Some of these interactions struck better than others, but they offered a nice point of difference.

The show needs a speck of polish, but I do hope the gentler, more intimate feel remains in future episodes, as long as the thing can still be kept on the rails. Perhaps for the second episode, Winkleman will have sparked to life and won’t feel the need to bring out a sweet pup to win us over. 

The Claudia Winkleman Show returns to BBC One on Friday at 10.40pm.

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