‘Unflappable, witty and super smart’: the rise and rise of Claudia Winkleman
The Guardian
On reports of a chatshow, he said: “I think she needs to be careful with that. Because that has to be about you. You have to be driving it and controlling it, and I think she possibly hasn’t enough of an ego.”
The PR expert Mark Borkowski said: “I remember I used to go into Liquid News. It was orientated towards a smart, younger audience, Paddy O’Connell used to be on it. It was a really interesting place for some of the BBC talent who are now pretty well established and have matured like great wine.
“And I always thought she was so smart, so on it. That’s part of what she offers at the moment.” Few people could carry live TV well, he added. “But you can see it in her. Whip smart, delivered without any of that barbed cynicism you get from social media.”
Winkleman, who has said of herself: “I’m a tiny orange lady and my fringe is too long,” has presented dating shows, film programmes, Fame Academy, Eurovision selection shows and The Great British Sewing Bee. She initially joined Strictly in 2005 to host the companion show Strictly: It Takes Two before moving to the main show in 2014, replacing Bruce Forsyth.
She has three children aged between 12 and 21 with her husband, the film producer Kris Thykier, and has juggled Strictly with the juggernaut that is The Traitors, Channel 4’s The Piano, and, up until last year, a BBC Radio 2 weekend show.
Celebrity Traitors, currently the BBC’s most watched reality TV show, is pulling in approximately 11 million viewers, to the delight of BBC bosses.
Borkowski said: “She’s great on Traitors at juggling that tension and the silliness with surgical precision. She’s got this calm that you need in the storm of this type of reality TV. She’s unflappable, witty, super smart and not over-exposed.”
In a world seemingly flooded with reality TV contestants and influencers, “in this general malaise of mediocrity”, he said, she stood out. “In terms of the unscripted space, she’s an absolute star.”
“She is emblematic, really of where real talent should be aiming for,” Borkowski said, adding that she had cross-generational appeal, particularly to women.
“One crucial thing. She has got an incredible stylist. And in this world of Instagram and visual aesthetics, she has really delivered. The sheen gloss black hair, everything about her look is so on brand and idiosyncratic. It does feel she’s not copying anybody else. There are no precursors to her. She is what she is and that’s very rare.”