Out of the mouth of babes. Aged 20, Freddie Fraser might be the youngest player in The Traitors but he spoke an awkward truth about the hit BBC gameshow on the latest mission. Rowing a Viking longboat across a loch, Freddie sacrificed himself because he couldn’t get the knack. “I was struggling with the oar movement,” he admitted. “Like, I’m not that posh. I ain’t done rowing.”
Freddie made a fair point. Looking around at his shipmates, the politics student from Peterborough will have seen an interior designer, a business director, a doctor, a priest, a bank manager, two teachers and a retired opera singer. The interior designer, who took charge due to having the most rowing experience, happened to be named Francesca Rowan-Plowden. Not so much a cross-section of UK society as one of Nigella Lawson’s dinner parties.
These rarefied rowers weren’t this year’s only well-to-do contestants. Already sent home – although some might soon return in that teased “rail replacement” twist – are an ex-diplomat, a property consultant and a professor. It’s like a lineup produced by a LinkedIn algorithm. You have been endorsed for being banishment-level posh. Please proceed directly to Made in Chelsea.
Admittedly, I’m being mischievous to make a point. This year’s castle residents also include a window cleaner, a soldier, a barber and people from diverse social backgrounds. However, it’s not just The Traitors’ cast which makes it so bourgeois. The show has partly struck such a chord because its genius is to make reality TV palatable for the chattering classes.
Consider its dreamy setting of Ardross Castle in the Scottish Highlands. A stately pile with the bold decor of a boutique hotel, it’s the epitome of countrycore chic. Ideal property porn to indulge one’s Downton, Bridgerton or Saltburn fantasies (just don’t drink the bathwater). Crunching along its gravel driveway come the show’s trademark Land Rovers, that textbook toff wagon. When those black 4x4s pull up outside, you half-expect two muddy labradors called Hooray and Henry to come barrelling out of the boot.
Equally key to the show’s aesthetic is the covetable wardrobe of host Claudia Winkleman. By day, La Winkle is resplendent in tweed, tartan, chunky knits and Hunter wellies, like a designer lady-of-the-manor. By night, it’s swishy black ponchos and red fingerless gloves. All the better for cheeky candlelight chats with owls.
The scheming and showdowns are punctuated by outdoorsy missions, where contestants bid to add cash to the prize pot and win immunity from murder. These have the vibe of a corporate team-building exercise. An away day out of the boardroom for braying executives to bond. Previous tasks have revolved around the decidedly Radio 4-friendly activities of archery, boating, bellringing and orienteering. It’s only a matter of time before there’s a dressage round, a ski trip or a fox hunt.
The production details are a Middle Englander’s fever dream. Everyone arrives on a Hogwarts Express-esque steam train. They stay in Farrow & Ball-painted hotel suites with velvety sofas and waterfall showers. Crucial conversations take place on enviable terraces, in Cluedo-style billiard rooms or around vast kitchen islands.
The Traitors. Photograph: Euan Cherry/BBC/Studio Lambert
The format itself is half post-prandial parlour game, half Agatha Christie whodunit. While they’re faux-killing each other or accusing each other of treachery, everyone is painstakingly polite and apologetic (“Really sorry, it’s nothing personal, I really like you but … ”). It’s as archetypally British as Paddington Bear wearing union jack boxers and a bowler hat.
The air of an aspirational minibreak extends to The Traitors’ trademark breakfast table scenes, where players wait to see who arrives alive and who’s been bumped off in the night. No fry-ups or variety pack Frosties here. It’s all fresh-baked pastries and premium granola with fruit compote. Does nobody eat toast in Traitors-land?
It’s like a Johnnie Boden or Charlie Bigham take on reality TV. A jolly rural romp, written by Jilly Cooper and directed by Richard Curtis. Pitched squarely at the Bake Off/Strictly demographic, it’s cosy and classy enough that viewers who might normally be sniffy about such contests find The Traitors palatable. Cue discourse dominance and broadsheet coverage (a bit like this). It’s also on the dear old BBC, rather than one of those ghastly commercial channels.
Don’t get me wrong. I adore The Traitors as much as anyone. It has made such an impact and become a pop-cultural phenomenon because it’s truly brilliant TV. Cleverly scheduled for January when a sofa-bound nation needs a new obsession, it’s endlessly gossipy, full of memeable moments and fiendishly addictive. Winkleman’s wit and the camp flourishes keep it just the right side of smug.
Besides, we class warriors can console ourselves that, like most reality contests, the poshos rarely win. As Guardian writer Louis Staples pointed out on X last week, the most successful Traitors have tended to be wily working-class men (see series one runner-up Wilf or series two winner Harry) or smart women with regional accents (Welsh Amanda in series one, Liverpudlian Minah in the current run).
So don’t worry, Freddie. It won’t be your lack of regatta pedigree that trips you up. It certainly won’t be that gratuitous oiled-up workout footage. It will be some random “gut theory” at a Round Table or that inadvertently Traitor-ish thing you said to Maia on the pontoon. At least when it comes to wrong-headed logic and unjust eliminations, The Traitors is a level playing field.
