The Traitors: Betrayal! Guilt! Claudia Winkleman’s hair! Sequence one stars spill their secrets and techniques forward of ultimate exhibits

From the key couple to the mic-drop “parting gift” of the ultimate, The Traitors grew to become a sleeper hit when the primary collection launched simply over a 12 months in the past.

It’s again and even larger this time spherical, with hundreds of thousands following the sport of cat and mouse as every completely paranoid contestant tries to persuade the others they’re certainly 100% devoted.

The Traitors is the proper actuality recreation present for 2024 – savage however not merciless, a social experiment with pantomime villains but additionally real emotion, and filled with memeable moments and cliffhanger endings courtesy of deadly kisses and poisoned chalices.

Plus, it has the flexibility to swamp Google with type searches because of host Claudia Winkleman’s fashionable nation/Gothic vamp wardrobe. Because the need to buy, let’s face it, is the factor each good actuality present ought to invoke. (Princess Anne meets Ronnie Corbett meets Madonna when she married Guy Ritchie, is the the type she’s channelling, apparently).

For the few who have not seen the programme, it’s basically a homicide thriller set in a citadel in Scotland, performed by 22 folks – a few of whom are secretly designated as “traitors” through a easy shoulder squeeze from Winkleman as they sit blindfolded initially.

The traitors are tasked with “murdering” (not actually) a devoted participant every night time, and convincing these remaining of their honourable intentions to save lots of themselves from banishment at a day by day spherical desk vote, all with the purpose of profitable a prize pot of as much as £120,000.

The Traitors additionally get to put on cloaks and meet up secretly in a turret after darkish, which appears like enjoyable. At the tip of the present, any faithfuls left break up the money. But if there is a traitor of their midst, the baddie walks away with the lot.

As the second collection will get nearer to its finish, contestants from collection one are watching eagerly to see how their successors fare and shared their ideas with Sky News.

Be a superb traitor – or a egocentric devoted

“Although it’s a game of deception, it’s a game of trust,” says Amanda Lovett, a fan-favourite collection one traitor; an property agent and mom of 5 from Swansea whose lilting voice and mother-figure standing belied the very fact she was quietly killing everybody off. “You have to get people to trust you very quickly, form friendships… because when they trust you, they believe anything you say.”

Wilf Webster, the one traitor to make it by to the ultimate, says you may by no means be too assured. “If you’re too ruthless, you create insecurities between the other traitors. I have decent morals and I feel I was made a traitor because of that, but I’m also really competitive – I’ll do anything to win.”

He provides: “Towards the end, I was murdering everybody close to me. That was my whole strategy. So I’d get upset because of guilt, but people would think it was because my friend had gone.

“I’m not excellent at faking my feelings so I used to be like, if I do one thing that helps me cry, that is most likely higher.”

For a faithful, the best strategy is to keep your friends close and your suspected traitors closer, he says. “Be finest mates with them. Vote for whoever they vote for.”

Comedian Hannah Byczkowski, a former faithful and one of the first season winners, reckons that even as a faithful, the most important thing is to think about number one.

“After the primary couple of spherical tables, I used to be like, there isn’t any want to search out who the traitors are, I’m going to go away that to someone else and focus alone recreation as a substitute of specializing in group play,” she says, pointing out something a lot of the faithfuls, as friendships develop, appear to forget.

She adds: “Ultimately, not all of the faithfuls are going to be there on the finish. Every day I wished to verify I used to be the one who stayed. It was a fairly egocentric tactic, however that is the sport.”

The burden (or not) of betrayal

In the collection one ultimate, faithfuls Hannah, Meryl and Aaron break up the prize cash after suspecting Wilf proper on the final minute. It received fairly tense.

“I felt guilty the whole time I was there,” says Wilf, who was mates with Hannah particularly. “I can’t even imagine how guilty I would have felt [if I’d won].”

When his deception was revealed, the reduction was evident.

He says: “I think people were like, okay, he’s actually a nice guy who’s just playing a game… it was intense, like everything I’d been lying about, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Did Amanda really feel responsible?

“No,” she solutions bluntly, laughing. “It got difficult, but it was a game, you know? Wilf and myself, we had a few difficulties in our childhoods in different ways so I think you learn to put a facade on, become another person.

“Wilf was extra emotional than me, however we each had been in it to play a recreation… I knew I used to be going house to my household – and hopefully the nation nonetheless wanting a traitor to promote their homes. That’s what I used to be panicking about!

“None of us realised how big it was going to be. When I came out, I was thinking to myself – what if everybody hates the traitors? We’re the villains, aren’t we? But people embraced it.”

‘It’s like being knighted’

Watching this collection has felt like “watching a nanny cam and seeing someone in your house,” Amanda jokes. “I was quite protective of my cloak. I thought – are they worthy? You feel so powerful in it.

“When you get touched on the shoulder by Claudia, it is virtually such as you’re being knighted and if you’re handed the cloak, it is like: ‘I’ll put on this with nice delight and dignity’. That’s how you are feeling.”

Sadly, they weren’t allowed to take them home. “But by no means thoughts,” she says.

Winkleman, as fans will know, is almost as invested as the players themselves; stern and admonishing when it comes to directing the round table, screaming encouragement during challenges.

“She’s obsessive about it,” says Hannah. “You can see how nervous she is about every thing. She messages us nonetheless, which is very nice.”

And the one thing everyone wants to know about Winkleman – is her hair really that shiny in real life? “So shiny,” Hannah confirms. “The girl smells like a summer season breeze.”

“We by no means knew when she was coming to the turret,” says Amanda. “That knock on the door could be an precise shock.

“But you could feel the excitement from her when she came in. I think when she put the cloak on she felt so wicked. There’s a dark side…

“In the missions she’s just like the mum on the sidelines at sports day, egging you on. But then at tea-time, she’s just like the mum if you’ve been naughty, going spherical and spherical that desk and it is like: ‘Who’s going to come clean with this?’ That’s what it looks like.”

The room is kept chilled with creepy music playing before they get to speak, she says. “So you are actually on this sombre temper.”

‘There’s nothing more fun than being in on the secret’

One of the most important secrets and techniques this season has not been stored by the traitors, however by mom and son Diane and Ross, two faithfuls who’ve stored their relationship hidden to this point.

It echoes the same trick in collection one, which noticed a pair, Tom Elderfield, a magician, and Alex Gray, taking part in the sport individually and stealing snogs on the sly – till Tom might maintain the key in now not.

“I mean, try playing a game of Werewolf with your family for two weeks,” he laughs. “You’re there for a long time. It plays with your head, that’s why you see emotions running high.”

Alex, who turned down the “golden ticket” to be recruited into the traitors later within the collection, says if she had her time once more she would go for it, however on the time she felt she could not have performed the sport mendacity to her fellow contestants.

“There were such heavy, intense emotions,” she says. “It was too much for me.”

Being the primary contestants, it was a “baptism of fire”, she provides, and nobody knew what to anticipate or how they might be obtained by viewers. “Now, I might have the resilience. But at the time it was the right decision.”

But the sensible factor about The Traitors is that the viewers is in on the key.

Rather than attempting to determine whodunnit and being shocked by the murderous choices, you are with them each step of the way in which.

This is why it really works so properly, says Tom.

“It’s kind of like a magic trick in the sense that the audience are in on it, and there’s nothing more fun than being the one that’s in on the secret,” he says. “Everyone knows how the trick is done, they can see who the traitors are, they can see why it’s going wrong. And being the person who knows the secret, it’s very entertaining to watch people get it very wrong.”

It additionally appeals to our darker aspect, says Hannah. “This is the one time where [as a traitor] you have permission to lie and cheat and steal and all the rest of it. Dating shows, you kind of feel guilty because you’re taking enjoyment out of somebody else’s pain. But we all love the drama and we can’t deny that. Traitors gives you an opportunity to do that without kind of feeling too bad about it.”

All 5 collection one contestants suppose a traitor goes to win this 12 months.

“I want a traitor,” says Amanda. “Let evil win this time.”

The Traitors is on BBC One on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 9pm, and on iPlayer and Sky catch-up