I’m not quite sure at what point this obsession started and, if I’m being honest with myself, obsession could well be an understatement. Maybe it was after reading her life-altering memoir, Quite. Perhaps it was that time when I trawled through her Wikipedia page for nine hours – did you know she’s been a film critic? Despite the incessant modesty and self-deprecation – often saying “I’m thick” and that she only eats Nando’s – the presenter has a Masters in History of Art from Cambridge and used to present The Radio 2 Arts Show With Claudia Winkleman. My fixation has proved highly destructive for my own dating life; friends have obnoxiously said to me that it isn’t realistic to expect other women my age to reach Claudia’s standards. With bated breath, I’m waiting.
In December, Winkleman announced she’d be leaving the radio. I remember that hateful, hateful day; I cried in a Pret on my lunch break. So what? People leave jobs all the time, with radio schedules particularly volatile as presenters move slots or jump to commercial rivals. In this instance, the reason is far simpler and more difficult to dispute; Winkleman would merely like to spend more time with her family.
I managed to meet Winkleman one rainy, cosmic-like day in February. I’d been given a tip-off that she was filming Channel 4’s The Piano in Waverley Station and so, without showering, I ran, in Hugh Grantesque fashion. She was charming, of course. Spell-binding. Her favourite Oasis songs are Live Forever and Champagne Supernova. She really is that orange. I remember watching my mum get married back in 2015, seeing my brother learn to walk, yet this was the first time I understood what it was to feel pure, unwavering joy.
Winkleman took over the renowned Radio 2 Saturday mid-morning slot from Graham Norton in November 2020 and has since commanded an audience of millions who flock to tell her their ‘News at 10’ or ‘Little Wins’. The latter is a segment the presenter created that pits a listener against a celebrity guest on the show, celebrating silly and often trivial moments that are a rarity in the everyday; peeling back a yoghurt lid that is clean, a bus turning up at exactly the time you arrive at the stop, having just enough milk left in the fridge to pour in your tea. Her ability to talk to everyone and anyone shines through most in her show (and I can confirm she is thankfully not a diva), whether it’s thanking those who perform the hourly news bulletins, congratulating the listener on their birthday, or her camaraderie with ‘Sally Traffic’.
The show is objectively full of nonsense, something many would cast as ‘light entertainment’. Yet it is also the show that I turned to most during anxiety-filled days abroad last summer, when home felt so far away, or in dissertation-induced breakdowns in the library. This speaks not just to Winkleman’s talent, but the enduring place radio can hold within our lives. Listening to Claudia for the past few years has shown me the importance of these ‘Little Wins’, of approaching life with a sense of humour, of having a radio show as a staple of your week that you look forward to. If anything, this show is as profound as it is nonsensical.
“DK / claudia winkleman” by sjoerdtenkate.com is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.