The twists and turns of BBC’s The Traitors have the nation gripped. While just 1,500 applied to take part in the first series of the Mafia-style reality show, that leapt to 40,000 for Series Two. When applications were opened for the next series, a whopping 300,000 potential traitors (and faithfuls) begged to take part.
And show host Claudia Winkleman has a deep affection for all of them. She says that by the end of filming she feels as if the contestants are her “children”.
She admits that seeing some contestants banished has even left her in tears, telling HELLO! Magazine: “There is somebody this year, and you can’t see it, but I really cried when they were banished.”
Claudia regards all the players – Faithful and Traitors alike – as her ‘children’
(Image: PA)
As well as banishment – where contestants vote to eliminate suspected Traitors – there are the “murders,” where Traitors conspire to quietly remove Faithfuls, especially if they’re starting to suspect them.
The show, which originated on Dutch TV, has become so popular in the UK that a fourth series has already been greenlit, and a celebrity spinoff is also on the way.
But as popular as the show has been, producers are constantly adding little tricks to make its twists and turns even more deceptively delicious. “There are some really exciting things that have changed, which keeps everyone on the toes and feeds into the central premise of trust,” Claudia says.
Viewers love the show’s wicked twists and turns
(Image: PA)
The main change will be that, in the current series which started on New Year’s Day, banished contestants no longer have to tell the other players of the game whether they were Traitors of Faithfuls. That will lead to constant doubt among the remaining faithfuls about whether they’ve done the right thing.
That uncertainty may be part of Claudia’s emotional reaction to a recent banishment.
And it wasn’t just her that was left left teary-eyed. “The camera people are all completely hidden in the round table and two of them came out and they were also crying,” Claudia adds. “The three of us cried together. We go in deep.”