Claudia Winkleman’s new Radio 2 show gets off to a brainless start

Last Saturday on Radio 2 Claudia Winkleman was inaugurated as the host of what was formerly Graham Norton’s mid-morning spot. She announced her arrival by playing ‘Help!’ by the Beatles and offering a line-up comprised solely of fellow Saturday-night TV presenters. Here was Sir Tom Jones, calling in from ‘a terrace overlooking the Thames’ and repeating more or less the same interview he had delivered on Graham Norton’s TV show last month. Half an hour later came David Walliams, and to round things off Ant & Dec were prevailed upon to talk about their ‘jampacked’ ITV show later on that day. ‘How do you not unravel doing it?’ gushed Winkleman, as if A&D have not been a tightly ravelled mainstay of jampacked shows since about 1900.

The only genuinely interesting moment in the whole three hours was when Zoe from the BBC’s tech department was rung up in order to explain why the ‘crying with laughter’ emoji was being phased out as it was deemed old-fashioned.