Who is Victoria Coren Mitchell? Meet the Only Connect Host and Poker player
Everything you need to know about the Only Connect Host
Victoria Coren Mitchell has popped up on our screens on everything from Question Time to Late Night Poker, juggling presenting, panel shows and comedy in addition to her numerous writing projects.
Far too multi-skilled to settle in just one job, here's everything you need to know about the broadcaster, journalist and poker player.
Who is Victoria Coren Mitchell?
Coren Mitchell is the host of Only Connect, where contestants find connections between unconnected clues in possibly the hardest game show on TV, and has presented Radio 4 comedy series Heresy since 2008.
In her broadcasting career, she has presented several BBC documentaries on topics on everything from language and surrealist art to Mary Poppins and P.L. Travers. She is also a regular on Radio 4, having previously hosted Fourth Column and Off The Page.
She’s a professional poker player
For someone in the funny business, Victoria has a surprisingly good poker face. She became first woman to win an event on the European Poker Tour, the first player to win both a televised professional tournament and a celebrity televised tournament and the first player to win two European Poker Tour Main Events. She even won the tidy sum of £500,000 from winning her first European Poker Tour title in London in 2006.
She combined her gambling and presenting skills to host Late Night Poker and The Poker Nations Cup for Channel 4, and has provided commentary for poker tournaments on ITV and Sky Sports.
She's been writing since a young age
A bit of a child prodigy, Victoria won a national writing competition and had her work published in a magazine aged just 14, and then spent her teenage years writing weekly columns for The Daily Telegraph.
She wrote a play, A Lump In My Throat, which played at The Edinburgh Festival and in London before Victoria adapted it into a TV play for BBC2.
She has also written several books, including Love 16, Once More, With Feeling and For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair with Poker and still writes columns for The Observer, GQ and Elle magazine.
She’s been on ALL the panel shows
Name a panel show, she's been on it - Victoria has made multiple appearances on shows such as QI, Have Got News For You, The Last Leg, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, Room 101 and more. Phew.
On a slightly more serious note, she has been a guest on Question Time on multiple occasions, debating on topics such as the housing crisis and the junior doctors' strike.
She’s married to David Mitchell
The two share brains as well as funny bones - both studied at Oxford University. Victoria has since appeared on David's panel show Would I Lie To You, and David on a Comic Relief edition of Only Connect.
She is also the sister of food writer and TV presenter Giles Coren, daughter of English writer and satirist Alan Coren and cousin of the Reverend Michael Coren.
