TV producer and author Richard Osman is arguably well placed to weigh in on the hiccups affecting the new series of Strictly Come Dancing, which has faced backlash over its three new hosts
Richard Osman knows a thing or two about showbusiness. As the brains behind hit quiz show Pointless and a producer on programmes including ITV’s Prize Island and Channel 4’s Deal or No Deal, he’s arguably well placed to weigh in on the presenting hiccups affecting the new series of Strictly Come Dancing, which began airing earlier this month.
Emma Willis, Josh Widdicombe and Johannes Radebe have recently stepped into the roles previously held by Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly, but the unconventional three-person line-up has drawn criticism from some viewers.
Josh, in particular, has taken the brunt of the backlash, with fans branding him everything from “utterly useless” to a “spare part”. That reaction has seemingly prompted a wave of support from fellow celebrities.
Indeed, Strictly professional Lauren Oakley shared a story on Instagram that read: “We couldn’t be in safer hands than with these beautiful people.”
Richard and his The Rest is Entertainment co-host Marina Hyde also spotted the difficulties. Marina explained: “The bit that Emma has to do when you’ve got two exhausted people come off from doing their dance.
“They have to sort of get their breath back, you have to have a bit of chit-chat with the judges, then the judges have to do their judging. I felt adding Josh in to do some jokes as well, it’s quite complicated down there.”
Richard explained: “I can’t stress too much that, however many pilots you’ve done, and launch shows, and run-throughs and stuff, that the producers are watching that more carefully than viewers are watching it. The producers know.”
He explained that the hosts would be watching how it’s landing and would recognise that it’s rare to nail a new format straight away. Osman added that the trio each offers their own strengths, and that making small adjustments as the series beds in is to be expected.
Richard went on: “I think that the Johannes thing is interesting because at the moment, he’s doing exactly what Claudia did, which is you throw to Johannes. The producers have given him two talking points.”
He observed that Claudia excelled with this approach, but for Johannes, it doesn’t reflect “who he is”. As a trained dancer, Richard said, Johannes offers “something else”, and his distinctive contribution is yet to be found.
Richard continued: “At the moment, they’re doing, ‘You do exactly what Claudia did. We’ll feed you these two bits of vanilla information, you talk to the dancer and the celebrity, and then you throw it back to Emma and Josh’, but Johannes can’t do anything with that.”
He speculated that “no producer” would be watching back thinking they’d “nailed” it. Regarding Emma and Josh, Richard reckons a comparable issue might exist, with establishing the dual-presenter dynamic proving “tricky”.
“And writing for two people, one of whom is a comic and one of whom is not a comic, is sort of impossible. You know, that is sort of impossible. Now, when you’re a producer, when you’re making that show, you’ve got a billion different things to think about.
“So the first thing you do is, ‘Okay, we’ll put JoJo up there; we’ll do what we used to with Claudia. We’ll put Josh and Emma down there. We’ll do what we used to do with Tess, right?’ I think, probably, that’s not going to work going forward.”
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