The power of The Celebrity Traitors knows no bounds, as the hit reality show even has a royal fan.
This year, the likes of Paloma Faith, Clare Balding, Tom Daley, and more entered the Scottish Highlands castle for the ultimate game of betrayal.
It was comedian and unlikely Traitor Alan Carr who came out on top, though, securing £87,500 for his charity after deceiving historian David Olusoga and actor Nick Mohammed right to the end in the nail-biting finale.
As the nation tuned in in its millions each week, another person who couldn’t get enough of Claudia Winkleman’s twisted BBC game show was the Prince of Wales.
Revealing the series’ surprisingly very famous viewer, Sir Stephen Fry, a Faithful who the other contestants banished, has shared that the Prince and his family were completely ‘locked in’.
The broadcaster and actor, 68, said on Good Morning Britain of the show’s impact: ‘We had no idea what impact it would have across the demographic. Extraordinary.
‘The Prince of Wales at the Royal Variety Performance said to me, “We were locked into it”.’
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Sir Stephen added that he actively told presenter Claudia, who selects the Traitors after speaking to each of the players individually, that he did not want to be one, as he is not ‘cunning’ enough.
‘The tension – I just don’t think I would have been very good.’
To many viewers’ surprise, one of the finalists was historian Olusoga, who, throughout the series, was relatively quiet at the roundtable and largely followed the wrong theories.
Sir Stephen added: ‘One of the interesting things is people accuse you of being intelligent, and David (Olusoga) is obviously hugely intelligent, but there are different kinds of intelligence; one of them is cunning. And I don’t have that.’
Someone who did have that cunning edge, however, was presenter Jonathan Ross, who was praised for his game of deceit until he was eventually the first Traitor to be ousted from the series.
Despite appearing to enjoy the role of the murderous Traitor, Ross opened up that he found the programme ‘quite unpleasant’.
He said: ‘I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t enjoy it. I don’t think I enjoyed it as much as the Faithfuls did.
‘I wound up kind of hating it because they’re all such lovely people, and you’re lying through your teeth, and then you would see someone banished and stand there and be quite emotional and know that they were leaving something they wanted to continue.
‘They wanted more of the experience and realise that you played a substantial part in either engineering them out, but certainly not stepping in the way when you knew they were innocent.
‘So it was, in some ways, quite unpleasant.’
However, he has no regrets.
‘I’m thrilled I did it. I had a great time. It was a great experience, a once-in-a-lifetime experience for all of us.’
The Traitors will return to screens in the new year with its fourth civilian series, which has already promised ‘big’ plans for the unsuspecting hopefuls.
A fresh group of 22 contestants will compete for a potential £120,000 prize from New Year’s Day, working together in physically demanding missions to build up the cash before facing off at the roundtable for banishments.
But as they attempt to identify the Traitors, they’ll have to fly under the radar just enough to avoid being murdered in the dead of night as well.
It’s a sneaky game, but the Beeb is on hand to ensure fans don’t miss a second of the action, as there’ll be further content after each episode in the form of official spin-off show Uncloaked, hosted by Ed Gamble.
In their official announcement, the broadcaster said: ‘Expect even more twists, turns, secrets, epic missions, deception, banishments and, of course, murders aplenty.’
Casting is currently open for series 5, while The Celebrity Traitors has been confirmed for a second instalment, with the likes of Bob Mortimer and Daisy May Cooper among rumoured names to take part.
Don’t expect to see Jeremy Clarkson’s name in the lineup, though, as he’s said he’d ‘never in a million years’ take part.
The Traitors series 4 begins airing on January 1 at 8pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
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