The 50th birthday Jägerbombs went down well. Perhaps too well, as next day Fiona Bruce recovered after her party in a Soho club feeling, in her own words “a bit, err, headspinny”.
“I had lots of close friends and people from the newsroom who bought me Jägerbombs,” she admitted later. “I had an absolute blast... I spent almost the entire time on the dance floor and loved it.”
It’s not quite the image of the perfectly poised Bruce that we’re used to. Now 54, in her 29th year as a BBC employee, she’s normally highly polished, a bit plummy and rarely anything other than cool, calm and collected.
All qualities which may well help greatly if Bruce is confirmed – as is widely expected – to slip gracefully into the Question Time hot seat.
Bruce is reported to have auditioned for the Question Time host’s role behind closed doors in October, when she apparently hosted a mock up of the show with a panel of MPs including Tory Johnny Mercer and Labour’s Nick Thomas-Symonds.
Fellow broadcaster Victoria Derbyshire, 50, is also said to have been put through her paces, while fellow broadcasters Kirsty Wark, Emily Maitlis, Samira Ahmed and Nick Robison have all been touted as candidates to step into the large boots of current presenter, David Dimbleby.
But it’s Singapore-born Bruce, with family roots that lead back to the small beachfront village of Hopeman on the Moray Firth, founded in 1805 to provide work and homes for families displaced during the Highland Clearances, who emerged as the surprise frontrunner.
News that Bruce, who divides her time between hosting the Antiques Roadshow, art detective programme Fake or Fortune, and BBC News at Six and at Ten, was being considered, quickly raised eyebrows.
Labour MP for Heywood and Middleton in Greater Manchester, Liz McInnes tweeted: “Quite surprised by this. The tone of #bbcqt will certainly be different – at the moment it usually descends into a badly refereed shouting match.”
Alex Kocic, journalism lecturer at Edinburgh Napier University, says that’s one reason why Bruce has the right credentials to hold down the role. “She is a very capable journalist.
“She would not have got this far if she had not shown the ability to be probing, to ask difficult questions and to manage a lively conversation while preventing it from turning into a shouting match. The fact that most of us are surprised is a plus for the BBC. It shows that the bosses have been prepared to think outside of the box which is good.”
Bruce, a former Crimewatch host, has shown a gritty determination to succeed which may well have been inherited from her Scottish father, who rose from post-boy to become managing director at Unilever.
Having been schooled in various locations as a result of her father’s job, she read French and Italian at Hertford College, Oxford, and was working for an advertising agency in London when she encountered Tim Gardam, editor of Panorama, in 1989.
It was a pivotal encounter. Bruce apparently pestered him to give her a job as a researcher which in turn led to an assistant producer role followed by a stint as a reporter on BBC Breakfast News in 1992.
She has rarely been off-screen since, writing her own BBC News scripts as the seconds count down to going on air, and parachuted in to tackle big challenges – including a “car crash” interview with a clearly unwilling Duke of Edinburgh to mark his 90th birthday.
While other BBC women presenters of a certain age found themselves replaced by younger versions, Bruce’s profile soared.
She was 44 in 2008 when outraged comments claiming “dumbing down” and “sexing up” flooded a BBC website after news emerged she was to replace 75-year-old Michael Aspel as the host of the Antiques Roadshow.
Now as the first woman to chair the channel’s flagship politics show has sparked a similar flurry of despair among some on Twitter.
“We need a journalist of substance... Not someone who swans around stately homes looking at antiques . Not impressed”, wrote one user.
But Scottish Labour MSP Kezia Dugdale, who has made seven appearances on Question Time, disagrees: “Fiona would be an excellent appointment and I’m delighted that we’re set to have a woman presenter.
“Fiona deals with breaking difficult news all the time. Holding politicians to account and ensuring they actually answer the questions will come naturally.”
Meanwhile James Blake, a news producer and director of the Centre for Media and Culture at Napier University, says Bruce has the qualities needed to reboot a tired format.
“I think she’s the right choice. She is a news heavyweight, she can set the right balance between heavyweight discussions and interesting topics.
“There are massive boots to fill but her job will be not to try to fill them and instead to do things her way.”
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