There’s nothing the world loves more than a villain origin story: The Joker, Cruella de Vil – Alan Carr.
Yes, over the past two weeks one of the UK’s sweetest and funniest men has transformed from a sweating bag of nerves into a cunning mastermind, killing off national treasures one by one on Celebrity Traitors – and loving it.
“I’ve got a taste for it now,” he said after popping his best friend singer Paloma Faith in a coffin and caressing her face to kill her off. “Let’s get murdering,” he declared, gleefully, as he struck again.
All it took was one thrill of the kill and Carr got hungry for more, snatching the quill from his accomplices Cat Burns and Jonathan Ross to sign death sentences for The Midnight Club star Ruth Codd, Olympic swimmer Tom Daley, and singer Charlotte Church.
The definition of a smiling assassin; he, in fact, can’t stop himself from breaking into hysterical laughter as he evades detection. “I started stuffing cheese in my mouth to stop myself grinning,” he admitted with a titter after eliminating Church this week.
Carr’s genius truly emerged, though, when he went after Line of Duty star Mark Bonnar, a superfan of the show, who desperately wanted to catch a Traitor. “I’ve got a theory. It’s about you,” said Carr, deflecting back onto the actor. “I’m going to say it at the round table… and I don’t think you’re going to like it,” he warned Bonnar.
And say it he did, successfully convincing the cohort that the group’s most eager detective was, actually, deeply suspicious for throwing himself, too enthusiastically, into every task.
“I’m just bursting with confidence now as a Traitor,” he reflected, looking almost scarily smug and cunning, on leading the Faithfuls astray to banish yet another of their own. “Can you imagine Alan in the first week?” he asked. “I was perspiring, my glasses were steaming up. And look at me last night around the round table. I wanted to get rid of Mark and I got rid of Mark. Not a single bead of sweat.”
At breakfast Carr doubled down. “I actually thought I was gonna get murdered last night because I thought usually when you’re outspoken the Traitors just get rid of you,” he said as he buttered his toast.
When Calendar Girls star Celia Imrie called him out for being “much cleverer” than he lets on, the comedian clapped back: “You’re saying I play dumb?” to which rugby player Joe Marler quipped, “You don’t play dumb.” Thus falling once more into Carr’s masterful aren’t-I-so-silly trap.
Still, there are some cracks beginning to show as Carr gains confidence. He is, perhaps, getting a little cocky. In an act of true carelessness the comedian forgot he had a shield protecting him from harm and declared at the round table he was “scared” he may be killed next.
When the mess-up was highlighted by Marler later, comic Lucy Beaumont correctly concluded: “It’s not important to him. You don’t forget you’ve got a shield.”
And where was Carr as this post round table debrief occurred? Huddled in a happy corner of the Traitors castle with new “best friend” Celia Imrie drinking rosé and holding hands. “Please, you’re safe with me, I just get the giggles,” he told her as she asked if he was a Traitor for the first time in the competition. “I would die if you are,” she said, as she swigged her wine – and judging by Carr’s merry lack of loyalty, she may well be right.
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