Celebrity Traitors live: Faithful to be ‘murdered’ in plain sight after Jonathan Ross’s elimination

“This game doesn’t care who you are,” declares presenter Claudia Winkleman at the start of the new celebrity series, striding across the gloomy Great Hall of Ardross Castle, a 19th-century house and estate north of Inverness in the Scottish Highlands.

“In here, your ­glamorous lives count for nothing,” she tells celebrities including Paloma Faith, Stephen Fry, Jonathan Ross and Alan Car.

Ardross Castle is used in both the UK version of the show and the US adaptation hosted by Scottish actor Alan Cumming.

The day’s missions take place on site, while the discussions, action and banishments are filmed among the castle’s lavish interiors.

Isobel Lewis has everything you need to know about the stunning building:

The first-ever edition of Celebrity Traitors is entering its enthralling final weeks, with a huge prize pot up for grabs.

According to reports, the celebrities will be paid a flat fee of £40,000 for appearing in the series.

Joe Marler was “born to play” the game and is “mind-warping” all his co-stars in the BBC show, according to his friend and former England and Harlequins teammate Danny Care.

Care told talkSPORT: “As soon as he told me he was going in, I said, I reckon you can win it, because he’s born to play that game, he really is, and no one can ever work him out, and now he’s in there with A-list celebrities, and you can see, he is mind-warping them all.

“They have no idea what he’s on about.

“I thought last night it might be the first, round table flip, and I thought he was going to whack Jonathan Ross, which I thought would be incredible, because I’ve seen those eyes before, he was angry.

“He’s doing amazing, we’re all really proud of him, and yeah, he’s smashing it.”

He continued: “He is built different in physical stature and the way he is with people.

“Those pearly blue eyes, they can melt you, but they can also, they can hurt you.

“I’ve seen those eyes before, where he gets angry, and then I’ve seen people get quite physically hurt straight after, so yeah, I was a bit worried for a few of those celebs around the table, but no, he’s also one of the smartest blokes I’ve ever come across.

“He remembers everything, and I think that’s the perfect way to play that game.”

At long last, the Big Dog is no more.

Since the beginning of the series, the Faithfuls had been operating under the “Big Dog theory” – an idea initially proposed by Joe Marler that suggested host Claudia Winkleman would have selected at least one very famous male celebrity to be part of the Traitors crew, meaning that players had their eyes set on both Ross and Stephen Fry, who are arguably the most well-known contestants this year.

But somehow, Ross survived several round tables as he led the Faithful astray and became their unofficial leader.

Ellie Muir looks back at his biggest and best moments on the show:

Here’s a reminder of everyone who has taken part in Celebrity Traitors and their current status in the game:

‘Celebrity Traitors’ and ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, the biggest shows on BBC One right now, have been dominated by a pair of withering gay comedians delighting in their own comic mercilessness. And it’s a much-needed throwback to a long-gone era of Lily Savage, Julian Clary and Mrs Merton, writes Adam White:

It’s hard to believe that this show only started a few weeks ago with 19 celebrity contestants. Now, just seven episodes later, we are down to the final seven contestants.

The final will air on 6 November, meaning there are only two episodes remaining.

Will the Faithful be able to suss out another Traitor before next week or will Alan and Cat survive until the final curtain?

The Celebrity Traitors has just two episodes left, with Thursday’s episode being the penultimate instalment before the final on 6 November.

Tonight’s episode airs at 9pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

Despite his incredible exit from the show, Jonathan Ross has been criticised by viewers for how he departed The Celebrity Traitors.

The 64-year-old presenter became the first traitor to be banished from the series after three gruelling weeks of the faithfuls banishing members of their own team by mistake.

Although it was Ross’s fellow traitors Cat Burns and Alan Carr who voted for their accomplice to be banished as suspicions mounted against him, it was Ross who viewers accused of the ultimate betrayal.

“The way Jonathan looked shocked at Cat… you’re gonna give people away,” one person wrote on X (Twitter) after Ross responded to the singer’s move with notably raised eyebrows.

Lydia Spencer-Elliot reports: