Whatever I expected from Celebrity Traitors, watching Stephen Fry scrabble around desperately in the dirt of his own freshly dug grave in an attempt to get his hands on a Shield was not it.
Nor was watching Paloma Faith get mud all over her immaculate new outfit, or Jonathan Ross slumped panting in front of his tombstone, dressed in a lovely pink suit that now looks pretty ruined.
Welcome to the Celebrity Traitors. And this is only in the first five minutes. That’s right, the hit game show has gotten its long-awaited deluxe upgrade, welcoming some of the biggest names in the UK, from across the worlds of acting, sport and music, through the castle doors to beef it out in the name of donating money to charity.
Not that the show seems to care about fame. Don’t think you’re special, it delights in saying (making celebs get their hands dirty for Shields being only one example). Now you’ve entered the game, Claudia Winkleman is king, and you’d damn well better do what she tells you.
In all fairness, the celebs in question are all admirably game. No big egos here – or at least, they’ve all been put aside in pursuit of good television. Clearly, everybody who’s taking part is a big fan: there are audible gasps of excitement from the cast when they pull up in front of the famous castle.
It’s very endearing, and sets the tone for the rest of the episode. Even if one of their peers is now dressed in a strutting Eighties power cape, bossing them around and telling them that there “is no special treatment” in the world of the Traitors, the only thing we get in response are excited ‘oohs’.
Our celebs in question are a mixed old bunch. There’s Fry, of course, who gloomily describes the beginning of the show as entering a “blizzard of horror”; amenable Mark Bonnar, who cops to playing “duplicitous, dodgy blokes” but insists he’s very trusting, and even National Treasure Celia Imrie, who proceeds to nuke her public image by declaring, “people think I’m nice… but I’m not.” The worst thing is, I believe her.
Once they (accompanied by Charlotte Church, YouTuber Niko Omilana, and Cat Burns among others) are allowed to actually enter the castle, the game properly begins. And for all intents and purposes, the show sticks to the tried and tested format, where Claudia quizzes them all on whether they think they’d make a good Traitor, before christening her chosen few at the round table.
I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting many of the big names to be up for a little murdering. Stephen Fry? Absolutely not. Jonathan Ross? Surely he wouldn’t.
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More fool me. Five minutes later, our Traitors are revealed to be Ross, Alan Carr and Burns. This is where the show truly takes off, for these three turn out to be a genius stroke of casting.
In particular, Carr is an absolute menace as a Traitor, simultaneously delighted at his nomination and freaking out hard in real time about having to lie to his friends. And that dramatic walk through the castle after dark, with his glasses propping up the hood of his cloak? Comedy gold. Ross and Burns, meanwhile, are cold as ice.
As the chaos unfolds, the celebs get their first challenge, in the form of dragging a massive wooden horse through a series of wooden gates that can only be unlocked by solving puzzles. Who’d have thought Nick Mohammed was a puzzle whizz? Or that Celia Imrie could push a two-tonne wooden horse alongside burly rugby player Joe Marler? Wonders never cease.
One thing’s for sure, though: it’s good fun. The show has managed to nail the sweet spot, losing none of its charm whilst also treating us to the spectacle of watching household names living out their Traitor-y dreams. Bravo, Studio Lambert: it’s devilishly more-ish.
Celebrity Traitors is streaming now on BBC One
