BBC presenter admits ‘I’m a wreck’ as she reveals ‘extraordinary pressure’ she feels at work
HISTORIAN Lucy Worsley has revealed she feels ‘extraordinary pressure’ as she takes on a new TV project.
Presenting history documentaries is a doddle for Lucy, but hosting her fast-paced new studio-based quiz show Puzzling is a completely different challenge.
“I’m a wreck, an utter heap of nerves,” admits the 49-year-old to The Sun’s TV Mag.
“This is all new to me, and the pressure of it is extraordinary. There are so many things that could go wrong, for the contestants but also for me.
“I’m under huge pressure to get the question out quickly but correctly.”
She continued: “It’s been a real joy, but also terrifying. Normally I’m out with a very small crew stuck on a rainy street corner in Edinburgh.
“I’m not used to working with such a large, complex team in such a big TV studio.”
In the show, some of Britain’s cleverest clogs pit their wits over five rounds of puzzles that range from the reasonably straight forward to the genuinely fiendish – and at stake, a place in each episode’s final.
But how does Lucy think she’d do as a contestant?
“I think I’d be in the bottom quartile,” she says. “I think I could get through quite a few of the questions, but not as quickly as they do.
“I think it’s unlikely that you’ll watch this quiz and not get any of the questions right. It’s an inclusive quiz. We hope that the people watching it will feel like they’re in a puzzling club, because everyone will be able to play.”
Surprisingly, Lucy’s love of quizzes is a fairly recent thing.
She explains: “Like many people, I got really into quizzes during lockdown.
“With my work colleagues, we did a quiz every week, and I got really into that, and we were doing family quizzes as well. There was one quiz we did at Christmas, which was the names of films expressed through kitchen utensils – that was great.
“We did Apocalypse Now with the beaters on the whisk whizzing around, while we were singing the Flight Of The Valkyries. And we did a beautiful Black Beauty with a toilet brush.”
And if Lucy could pick one figure from history to be a contestant on Puzzling, she knows who she’d choose.
“Jane Austen,” she says. “The answer to many questions in life is: Jane Austen.
“She was such a quick-witted, intelligent, watchful sort of a person. I feel like you excel at quizzes if you’re not necessarily a huge extrovert.
“This is an area of life where introverts can succeed.”
Puzzling launches next Thursday at 8pm on Channel 5 and My5.