Graham Norton<\/a>, who has turned his series into, by my estimation, the best talk show in the world. He also pioneered the trend of having all the celebrities on the couch together, a gimmick that now seems impossible for a new show to ignore. Winkleman\u2019s twist seems to be involving pre-selected members of the audience \u2013 a pencil designer who can extol the virtues of a \u201cwide core\u201d, a bloke from Wolverhampton to give Goldblum a travel guide, a ghost whisperer to cure Allen\u2019s theatrical heebie-jeebies \u2013 to join the conversation and interact with the guests. Sometimes it works (the appearance of Winkleman\u2019s set designer, Trudy, is a highlight), but generally it breaks the flow of the conversation. We\u2019re not watching for the civilians, after all.<\/p>\nAs a host, Winkleman is a bit of a throwback to the era when Michael Parkinson and Terry Wogan dominated the small screen. Their brand of avuncular questioning meant they could handle a range of guests, from musicians to politicians to athletes. But, in recent years, the chat show has been Americanised, with more comedians taking the reins (the surge of interest in celebrity podcasts has exacerbated this). Winkleman is witty but does not have Norton\u2019s ability to comedically spar with his guests. While she does well to restrain Goldblum\u2019s famously discursive style (a challenge, as anyone who has interviewed him, including myself, will attest to), there were a couple of moments where she seemed steamrolled. She struggled, too, to drag Williams into the flow of proceedings. \u201cIt does feel sometimes like I\u2019m in a nursing home,\u201d Allen remarked, as Goldblum embarked on a nonsensical detour about Roscoe Lee Browne.<\/p>\n
![\"First-night](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/558360.jpeg\")
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open image in gallery<\/p>\n
First-night guests: Jeff Goldblum, Jennifer Saunders, Vanessa Williams and Tom Allen (BBC\/So Television\/PA Media)<\/p>\n
What The Claudia Winkleman Show is shooting for, I suspect, is a classier alternative to the high-energy camp of The Graham Norton Show. In the episode, there is some debate as to whether the sofa is \u201chunter green\u201d or \u201cvery dark teal\u201d, but what\u2019s clear is that the set is moody and sophisticated (and not unlike the Traitors roundtable). The opening titles feel like Saul Bass taking a crack at The One Show theme, and with her trademark fringe and Marlene Dietrich-esque suit, Winkleman cuts an elegant, likeable figure. Easy rapport with guests and a consistent format will come over time \u2013 The Graham Norton Show, after all, was not built in a day.<\/p>\n
In her opening remarks, Winkleman speculates this might be \u201cthe first and last\u201d episode of her self-titled show. It won\u2019t be, of course. The British public have enormous affection for her and the BBC is determined to keep her in-house. 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. The ingredients are there \u2013 and they have the right mixologist \u2013 but they might need to tweak the recipe. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-474817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Winkleman](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/558366.jpeg\")
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