“Completely nerve-racking” are not words that broadcasting executives will often enjoy hearing from the incoming presenters of high-profile shows. But when it’s Claudia Winkleman speaking about the “total privilege” of being given Graham Norton’s Friday-night slot on BBC One for a spell this spring, a certain amount of self-deprecation is to be expected. It’s part of her persona – and her likeability, too.

The first seven-episode run of The Claudia Winkleman Show begins next week, and much is riding on its success. It makes me, a viewer with zero stake in the enterprise, nervous. Talent is only the starting point. What the host of a new chatshow in 2026 really needs is a quantity The Traitors UK presenter regularly sends in the direction of other people: enormous luck.

The BBC is vulnerable to backlashes at every turn, and, even with the much-loved Winkleman at the helm, the UK press won’t be shy of lambasting the broadcaster for any perceived misstep, no matter how tiny.

Then there’s the wild fact that women don’t often get to present shows like these. Incredibly, the last woman with her name above the door of a BBC One chatshow was Davina McCall, who fronted a short-lived, one-and-done series in 2006. If Winkleman’s doesn’t work, will another 20 years pass before another woman is allowed in the chair? It wouldn’t surprise me.

Chatshows are hard. They’re not dead, as has been claimed for decades, but they are hard. The reasons for this have had more airings than The Late Late Show. The capacity of old-school television to draw huge names and elicit insights, revelations and other forms of TV gold from them just isn’t what it used to be.

With so many other direct-to-consumer platforms available, A-listers no longer have to yield a scintilla of control. They will go through the motions of a closely supervised promotion schedule, yes, but they won’t race into some random studio ready and willing for a quasi-therapeutic conversation in which they lament the lifelong legacy of the distant relationship they had with their father when they were six.

Maybe that’s okay. I’ve written before about how the “golden age” of the chatshow is remembered more fondly than it deserves and, separately, how the deftness with which Norton weaves his particular magic in today’s publicity climate should be talked about more.

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The Claudia Winkleman Show is produced by So Television, the ITV-backed company that Norton founded with his executive producer, Graham Stuart. It has as much expertise and experience behind it as you can find. The show won’t be live, but Winkleman’s long record of spontaneous hilarity on live television is surely an asset. It will also have the advantage of going out at 10.40pm, unlike McCall’s show, which was judged for not pulling in viewers in their sufficient millions in a peak-time 8pm slot.

Still, making established chatshows sing is one thing. Launching a new one in the unforgiving landscape of 2020s television is another. Before Norton moved to Friday nights on BBC One he was able to hone his craft on BBC Two and, before that, on Channel 4. Winkleman, for all her years in broadcasting, is plunging into the deep end here.

When she filled in for Norton on a once-off basis in February 2025, the result was fine, but no more than that. Mostly, her stint as a substitute presenter served as a reminder of how accomplished he is at what he does.

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Sliding into someone else’s armchair is always going to invite comparison, of course. The trick to making The Claudia Winkleman Show fly will be to give it a format and personality all of its own. And, so far, we know little.

There will be a green sofa, not a red one. There will be audience interaction each week, which can be hit and miss. Next Friday the guests are Jennifer Saunders, Jeff Goldblum, Vanessa Williams and Tom Allen. Saunders is a comedy heroine, and the other three seem like good eggs, too, though if you were trotting along to The Graham Norton Show in person and that was the line-up, you might be disappointed. Luckily, reports from the filming point to some scene-stealing dog content. This seems like a smart inclusion, and not just because Winkleman is poised to present Crufts.

The general message sent is that this is not a show that will live or die on the starriness of its guests. Instead it will hang on the wit, warmth and energy of Winkleman herself. But seven weeks is not a long time to get comfortable in any gig, and it remains to be seen whether the skills she displays on other shows will translate into this one.

What’s her feeling about it all? “I’m obviously going to be awful, that goes without saying, but I’m over the moon they’re letting me try,” she says. It’s a classic pre-emptive strike.