Amelia Dimoldenberg is the queen of the deadpan silence.
But when I ask her if she would ever invite the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, on to her wildly popular YouTube series, she doesn’t skip a beat.
“I don’t think that maybe he’s my type for Chicken Shop Date,” she declares.
That might disappoint “social first” Burnham, who’s made it clear he plans to court content creators to help get his message out.
Still, Dimoldenberg – who has become one of the UK’s best-known content creators with millions of followers – says she’s not against the idea of the prime minister collaborating with people like her, and in fact would “love” a chat with him.
While some warn it’s a way of dodging serious scrutiny of policies, she views it as “a positive thing” to be working with social media influencers, “because that is now where so many people get their news”.
“I don’t think it means he’s only going to be speaking to vloggers forever, really,” she adds.
I meet Dimoldenberg not in a chicken shop, but in a studio in BBC Broadcasting House in central London. She’s OK with that though (“I love the pot plants,” she says. “It’s fantastic. I’m very happy to be here.”)
It’s been more than a decade since she set up Chicken Shop Date. Since then, she’s interviewed everyone from Cher to Ed Sheeran, and has become a celebrity in her own right.
The show is based around her trademark dry, awkward flirting style. In person, I find her inscrutable. You get the sense she’s judging your questions (I was secretly relieved when she told me later they were great).
But she visibly lights up when talking about her free summer course, the Dimz Inc. Academy, which she launched to train up people aged 18-24 and help them get into the creative industries.
The course offers guaranteed paid work placements, mentoring and an opportunity to gain experience across digital media. She is now bringing it back for a second year, and has extended it from one week to four.
“I started Chicken Shop Date as part of a youth club, and we made a magazine, and everything I learned there, the connections I made, the mentoring I got, set me up for the career that I have today,” she explains.
“So it was always such a big ambition of mine to be able to give that back to young people when I was able to.”
Behind it is a serious issue. Dimoldenberg points to the high number of young people not in employment, education or training – a group known as Neets.
“That’s really a big crisis. So there is no better time to be trying to do what I can to support the next generation of young people,” she says.
She added that while Burnham may not be welcome on her YouTube series, she would “100% love to have a conversation with him” about what he’s doing to tackle youth unemployment.
“I think having more training schemes, apprenticeships is really, really vital in helping young people,” she says.
Away from her Academy, Dimoldenberg is hugely busy building her media empire.
The second series of Passenger Princess, her comedy series which sees her interview some of Formula 1’s biggest names while learning how to drive, has just dropped on YouTube.
She also hosts red carpet interviews at the Oscars – following a tried-and-tested formula of comedic flirting and uncomfortable silences – and runs her own production company.
But she doesn’t take any of it for granted. Before going on a red carpet, she does copious amounts of research. “[It’s] like you’re really studying for your A-levels again,” she said. “I make sure that I have specific questions for every single person that I might meet.”
Next up, she’s starring in a rom-com – “playing myself”, she says, angelically – and says she wants to do more directing, having recently got behind the camera for Maisie Peters’ music video for single My Regards.
Meanwhile, Chicken Shop Date continues to go from strength to strength.
The show is billed around interviewing musicians, actors and comedians over a plate of nuggets. Politicians don’t really make the cut (it’s not just Burnham), and neither does royalty (“the Royals are just not really my type either”.)
Her chemistry with the Spider-Man actor Andrew Garfield sent the internet into meltdown, and led to speculation that they were romantically linked in real life.
When asked why that didn’t work out, Dimoldenberg says she was too busy and “just couldn’t make the time,” but she is sanguine about it. “You know, these things happen,” she muses.
Drake’s still her dream date
So what’s next for Dimoldenberg? I wonder whether she has her eyes on a pivot to a traditional TV couch format – perhaps picking up from Claudia Winkleman, whose show ended after one series – but she doesn’t seem interested.
“I feel like what I have with Chicken Shop Date is essentially a late night talk show,” she says.
“And I think that there wouldn’t really be a need for me to do something other than that right now while I have Chicken Shop Date, because to me it serves the purpose of what a chat show is.”
Dimoldenberg has previously indicated that she will close the shop when she gets the Canadian rapper Drake on her show.
“Well, the stars haven’t aligned yet, but you never know what might happen in the future,” she says of her Drake bid. “Maybe I have to go to Toronto, but no, I’d much rather he come to me.”
For now though, she bats away any suggestion that she’s ready to end her series, even though she’s arguably now more famous than some of the people she interviews.
“I still feel like there are dates that I really want to do,” she says.
“I need fall in love, you know? I need to meet my one true love. So I have to carry on until that happens.”
Related topics
- Culture
- Andy Burnham
