FIRST REVIEW: THE CLAUDIA WINKLEMAN SHOW
★★★★★
AS if fronting Strictly, The Traitors and Crufts wasn’t enough, she’s now got her own chat show and after months of anticipation, it launched last night and got people talking for the right reasons.
Chat shows are notoriously difficult to get right.
There’s even more pressure if you’re doing one in the slot that usually belongs to Graham Norton — one of the best chat show hosts in TV history.
Shrewdly, Claudia acknowledged this within seconds of the opening episode.
After admitting she was nervous as hell, she told her guests: “Thank you for coming on the first and possibly last show.”
Her trademark awkwardness was endearing and immediately made sure we’d all root for her – which is either good luck or a masterstroke.
Most read in CLAUDIA WINKLEMAN
Crucially, Claudia has also secured some cracking bookers.
They landed a top notch line-up with Hollywood royalty Jeff Goldblum, showbiz royalty Vanessa Williams, comedy royalty Jennifer Saunders and the very likeable Tom Allen.
And they’d all got the memo to play ball and deliver an opening episode full of sizzling chemistry, cheeky banter and decent anecdotes.
Will she rival Parky? Were there any big revelations? No.
But Graham has proved you don’t need that for a chat show to work.
You need it to feel like we’re spying on celebs at a dinner party – and based on this episode, an evening in at Claudia’s house would be a lot of fun.
