The first series came to a sensational, phenomenal and genuinely mind-boggling conclusion … by ruining the greatest love story of our age
Did he play a blinder? Or did the faithfuls just play really – I mean sensationally, phenomenally, mindbogglingly badly? We will argue over this on social media feeds galore, but either way the winner of the first – but surely not the last – series of The Celebrity Traitors is the treacherous Alan Carr. When first anointed by that collection of cloaks, cuffs and curt instructions we have come to know as presenter Claudia Winkleman, we thought he wouldn’t last an hour. Nor did he. “I feel sick. I’ve got a sweating problem and can’t keep a secret.” He also cannot whisper or remember whether he’s won a shield. Surrounded, however, by some of the daftest players of the game since records began (2022 here, 2021 in its native Netherlands), he made it through, having grown into the role with terrifying ease. He finished with a flourish, bursting into semi-crocodile tears about how hard it had been for him to bear the murderous burden. The two surviving faithfuls, Nick Mohammed and David Olusoga, rushed to comfort him (“It’s been tearing me apart!”). At home, Paloma Faith raises her face to the heavens and screams.
At the start of the final, there had been five surviving competitors of the original 19. After one last group mission, involving a steam train, £20,000 in padlocked caskets, keys and clues dispersed throughout the carriages, and two chain-wrapped coffins (“I took the lead a bit there,” says Joe Marler of the unwrapping. “Because I was happy to lose a finger”), they assembled for their last round table. Cat and Alan cast their votes for David, despite the historian’s impressive record of reasoning himself to every wrong conclusion possible. I remain firm in my belief that David would have made the world’s greatest traitor, but as a faithful he was catastrophic. He did manage to vote for Cat at the table, however, and she was correctly banished at last.