Warning: this review contains spoilers<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Lord knows how Alan Carr will get through The Celebrity Traitors<\/a>\u2019 Round Table without going to pieces and yelling: \u201cOh, gawd. Yes, it\u2019s me!\u201d<\/p>\n Along with Jonathan Ross and Cat Burns, the comic and presenter<\/a> has been chosen as one of this year\u2019s initial \u201ctraitors\u201d. Watching him vibrate with panic is highly entertaining and makes him the star of the first episode. Ross, who has packed a Val Doonican knit and a Top Gun flying suit in his suitcase, is in his element, while Burns, a neuro-divergent<\/a> singer-songwriter with an air of calm, may go under the radar for some time.<\/p>\n Cat Burns, a neuro-divergent singer-songwriter, is also selected to be a Traitor – Euan Cherry\/BBC\/Studio Lambert<\/p>\n b’<\/p>\n ‘<\/p>\n This VIP version of the hit BBC One show is great fun. There are 19 celebrities, so even if some get on your wick, there will be others you like. I defy anyone to recognise all of them. If you\u2019re au fait with Celia Imrie, you probably don\u2019t know YouTube prankster Niko Omilana, and vice versa. Not being a rugby fan, I had never heard of Joe Marler<\/a>, but he\u2019s one of the funniest people here.<\/p>\n \u201cIf this was a party, you\u2019d be really chuffed about who turned up,\u201d comedian Lucy Beaumont says as she surveys her fellow contestants. And she\u2019s broadly right, provided you\u2019re a big fan of Stephen Fry<\/a> and don\u2019t mind Charlotte Church getting all woo-woo<\/a> about becoming \u201cintimate with the Earth\u201d.<\/p>\n Jonathan Ross is clearly in his element when selected to be a Traitor by Claudia Winkleman (right) – Euan Cherry\/BBC\/Studio Lambert<\/p>\n b’<\/p>\n ‘<\/p>\n The format is unchanged from the original version of the show: the contestants are ferried to The Traitors castle<\/a> in the picturesque Highlands, where three of them are secretly selected by host Claudia Winkleman<\/a> to be traitors. They must carry out a \u201cmurder\u201d each night without being detected, while the whole group also takes part in team challenges to boost the prize fund. The winner will win up to \u00a3100,000 for their chosen charity.<\/p>\n In the launch episode, at least, everyone behaves exactly as you would expect. Carr is hilarious. Former Olympic diver Tom Daley<\/a> models his own knitwear. Historian David Olusoga<\/a> talks very softly, while Fry seeks out the works of Shakespeare in the library and admires \u201cthe bibelots, the objets trouv\u00e9s delicately placed on the shelves\u201d. Big personalities stand out \u2013 singer Paloma Faith being one of them \u2013 while quieter players, such as actor Mark Bonnar<\/a>, do not. But there are eight more episodes to go.<\/p>\n b’<\/p>\n ‘<\/p>\n Is it as good as the non-celebrity version? Not quite. On the other hand, the fakery involved in being a celebrity might turn some of this lot into elite-level traitors.<\/p>\n The producers don\u2019t give them an easy ride. The first thing the contestants have to do is dig their own graves to win a shield protecting them from elimination. The opening mission, to get a Trojan horse up a hill, is physically tough. Sportsmen Marler and Daley, unsurprisingly, are good at it. Clare Balding takes charge and gives instructions in head girl fashion<\/a>, only to make a blunder. The task also involves brain power, which is where Nick Mohammed, probably the only Ted Lasso star to have studied geophysics at Cambridge, comes into his own.<\/p>\n Blindfolded, the celebrities sit at the round table while Winkleman (bottom) selects the series\u2019s villains – Euan Cherry\/BBC\/Studio Lambert<\/p>\n And the show is so well-made and well-edited that it is guaranteed to entertain. The episode really gets going at the end, when the traitors are given their first instructions. One of them must secretly \u201cmurder\u201d a player by touching their face, without giving the game away. Ross and Burns entrust the task to Carr, even though Ross would be a far better bet<\/a>. \u201cI thought I wanted to be a traitor, but I have a sweating problem and I can\u2019t keep a secret. What am I going to do?\u201d Carr wails. I can\u2019t wait to find out in episode two.<\/p>\n The Celebrity Traitors continues on BBC One, Thursday October 9 at 9pm. The first episode is on BBC iPlayer now<\/p>\n<\/span><\/div>\n
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